


Ophelia

by JaneDoe39



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2020-12-14 18:03:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 59,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21019973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneDoe39/pseuds/JaneDoe39
Summary: But such feelings as what she’d begun to express could not be taken back. Given the slightest breath, those sentiments gained form, erupting from the dark corners of their prison, wild and untamable—impossible to put away.  – A retelling of Grace and Tommy's story.





	1. Away it Goes

**Author's Note:**

> All other author's notes and historical notes can be found at the end of the chapter.

Away it Goes

1919

The light from the window was warm and sweet, soft with the glow of late afternoon. Dust motes floated into and out of sight—suspended in existence before flickering out, cast unseen into the shadows. She too, must be cast into shadow, for her existence in Birmingham had reached its natural conclusion. This she understood, but as she sat before her closed valise, observing the dust come into being and fade out of it, feeling that warm sunlight seep into her bones, she knew she would not leave.

She’d come to England seeking some sort of retribution, but instead she’d stumbled upon a feeling that filled her to the brim. It began that night, when they were alone at The Garrison, she perched on high upon a wooden chair, he staring up at her, those frostlike eyes licking fire across her skin.

_“Happy or sad?”_

_“Sad.”_

_“Ok. But I warn you, I'll break your heart.”_

_"Already broken.”_

Outside, the sound of the rain pattered against the damp ground, its roaring rush remained distant and muted. Inside, the warm light of The Garrison wrapped around them and her voice rose over the rainy silence.

_A sad misfortune came over me_  
_ Which caused me to stray from the land_  
_ Far away from me friends and relations_  
_ Betrayed by the black velvet band_

She glimpsed his soul that night and her own unfurled within her. Her rage for the IRA, already a pallid, lukewarm feeling, made room for this new thing that took root and flowered.

_Her eyes they shown like diamonds_  
_ I thought her the queen of the land_  
_ And her hair, it hung over her shoulder_  
_ Tied up with a black velvet band_

When the last notes of the song faded away, they were left empty and uncertain. As if they had poured out too much of themselves and now had no way of taking it back.

These thoughts kept her company while she waited in her Birmingham flat. When the knock came, the sun through the window was thin and weak, it’s blue-grey tendrils cast cold shadows over her skin. She stood slowly, shaking the wrinkles from her skirt and turned to face the door. Her handbag she took from the coatrack, draping it across her shoulder, reaching into it to feel the gunstock of her “comforter,” a Webley Bulldog revolver. Her heartbeat sounded as loud and forceful in her ears as the knocking at the door.

“Grace, open the door. Open the door.”

Her hand uncoiled from the revolver, but she left her handbag hanging from her shoulder as she undid the lock. Blood stained his shirtfront; beneath his open collar she could see bandages, already soaked through. He had one shoulder resting against the doorframe, with his head turned down towards the floor. As soon as she stepped back, he brushed by her. Grace closed the door behind him, leaning into it for a moment—the grain of the wood rough beneath her fingertips. He was watching her, she could feel his gaze upon her back. She inhaled slowly, and turned.

He had already managed to light a cigarette, and was pulling the first drag into his lungs while he stared at her.

“Billy Kimber nearly killed me today.”

“Why are you here, Tommy?”

“Nearly killed my family.”

“Then you can only have one reason for being here.”

Thomas took another deep drag of his cigarette, shaking his head just the slightest bit, his eyes boring into her unblinkingly. He had the uncanny ability of looking straight into you, as if his eyes could peel your skin away, layer by layer, and leave your soul bare upon the ground.

“No.” He shook his head again and pointed at her with the hand holding his cigarette. “No. I can have two reasons for being here Grace. But one of them would leave you dead.”

She said nothing to that.

Thomas turned away from her, to look out the window. He took slow, measured breaths while he smoked. His gaze cast itself from the approaching night to the luggage gathered tidily over the threadbare rug.

“No goodbye, then?”

Grace went to the shelves of her kitchenette, pulling down two crystal glasses. “I had time to leave, Tommy,” she said quietly, uncorking a bottle of rum and pouring a thimble each. The smell of alcohol wafted up to her. With one hand gently outstretched, she turned her head over her shoulder. He took a step nearer, then another. The glass hung suspended between them. When he took it from her, his fingers brushed over her skin in the lightest of touches—a soft whisper of a feeling—like those caresses he gave her the night before, in this very flat, hands skimming over her ribs. They stood like that, unable to escape each other’s gravity.

Clearing her throat, Grace untucked the bench from beneath the vanity, set it next to the window, and sat on it, smoothing her skirts as she motioned to the armchair opposite her. Thomas took a long sip of his rum, looking at her over the rim of the glass, then he swept out his coattail and sat, elbows resting on his knees, drink hanging from one hand.

“You know, Campbell told me that before this day was through, my heart would break. How could he know that, I wonder?”

She wrapped both hands around her drink, looking down into the amber color of the rum as it shook and trembled in her lap. “What exactly could I say, Tommy?”

“I don’t know, Grace.”

“I could tell you who I really am.”

“I think I know who you really are. You know who I am.”

“I do, sometimes. But when I think about us, Tommy, I think of the secrets. I think, ‘How can we see each other; how can we feel this between us and yet know so little of one another?’ I don’t just mean the terrible things—the war, my occupation, your business—I mean other things, too. I don’t know how you take your tea, you know, or whether you still prefer a straight razor when you shave. I couldn’t tell anyone whether or not you drink coffee in the mornings.”

He leaned back a little in his seat and said, “So it was an occupation? What got between us?”

“Just a uniform.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. I know that even if you won’t kill me tonight, you won’t stay with me either. You can’t. It’s not in your nature.”

“Then you do know me.” Tommy knocked back the last of his drink and rose. He paced to the window, then to the kitchen, where he took up the bottle of rum and set it between them. He refilled his glass and drank it down in one. “Tell me, Grace. I want you to tell me.”

It hurt her to imagine the end of this conversation, to imagine him putting on his hat and walking out the door. She felt the cold night press down on her. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she rested her lips there a moment, holding onto her words and her hopelessness. “Do you remember, where I’m from?”

“Galway. If it can be believed.”

“It can.”

“You never said much about yourself, one way or the other.”

She hummed in agreement, “Yes, that’s the key in this line of work.” She couldn’t look at him as she spoke, so she looked out the window, through the lace curtains into the nearly black, miserable city of Birmingham, its hard, terraced houses packed beside each other with not a single green, living thing between them. “I was born there. Have you been?”

“No.”

“It’s beautiful; a coastal town. The River Corrib comes winding down from the north, through the docks and the Claddagh. It splits into tributaries—lined with enormous trees—that spill into the sea. There’s a cathedral, the Galway Cathedral, which sits just a ways up from the shore—growing from the riverbank. I used to go there, when there was no mass, to hear the silence curl inside the soaring ceilings.”

Tommy leaned back into his seat, his body unfurled into the cushions and his head he rested upon the seatback. He stared up into the dark ceiling, then closed his eyes, letting her voice wrap itself around him. Her words spilled into his ears like honey, sweet and slow.

“We lived in a house on the outskirts of town…”

The house belonged to the Royal Irish Constabulary. It was made of grey stone, in the Georgian style, with quoins and a gabled slate roof. Matching two-story bay windows pushed forward on either side of the recessed door. In the winter, smoke would rise in a steady plume of white ribbons from the chimney stacks, which bookended the tidy, little building. In summertime, the house grew a green coat of ivy. It was summer when Grace and her brother, William, loved their house best.

From an early age, the siblings roamed over the six acres of their father’s borrowed land. They climbed sturdy ash trees or quivering alders, Grace in her pinafore with the branches catching her petticoats and William in his breeches, his milky legs red with scratches. When their father allowed it, they swam in the River Corrib, stripped nearly naked, laughing madly as they threw themselves from the overhanging limbs of sturdy oaks. On occasion—usually after relatives filled the sitting room with war stories from China—they drew lines in the dirt, claiming territories and casting pebbles at each other, to pretend they were soldiers in the Boxer Rebellion, like their uncles or grownup cousins.

“You can’t be a soldier, Grace! You’re just a girl!” her brother William would yell, never really meaning it.

“Colonel Ear Lingus!” she’d holler, “Prepare for enemy fire!” whereupon she’d release the rubber band of her slingshot with a _crack_.

Grace was, as her brother mocked her, just a girl. But she was William’s only sibling, and therefore the only live-in playmate at Kinnaird House. She was also the eldest. This unique happenstance of geography and primogeniture granted her liberties many other young ladies lacked in 1899. Her father believed she should spend less time running through fields and more time in the sitting room, learning to manage the domestic affairs of their house. As Assistant Inspector General to the RIC, her father spent most of his time in the heart of Galway, leaving his children alone. Excepting the housekeeper, theirs was a household of three, with the lady’s bedroom sitting empty since William’s birth. Mr. Burgess allowed her these freedoms for the sake of companionship. But all things come to an end, and so, too, did her boyish adventures. As she grew, her pinafores were set aside and she was given long dresses whose close hems made it nearly impossible to take long leaps over muddy puddles. William, too, felt the constraint of suits with starched collars that closed about his neck like a noose.

Even when they managed to escape and climb up high into trees as if they were still children, they never again played at war. They had no desire to. Ireland’s troubles poured over like too much water in a boiling kettle. It seemed the world had gone mad. On Easter week of 1916, her brother, fresh from the front, agreed to meet a relative set to arrive by rail from Clifden. He waited for the train outside Galway city. It was a cloudless night with stars like dewdrops. When the locomotive thundered slowly into the station, hissing and spitting, handmade grenades were tossed into the buffers, clinking melodiously as they danced against the iron. Two miserably unfortunate souls were blown to pieces by the resulting blast: her brother and a porter. Three years later her father was escorting a shipment of gelignite when he was ambushed. The men who shot him would soon adopt the name of the Irish Republican Army. 

His body was still fresh in its cold grave when she joined the force.

“Birmingham was my first assignment,” Grace told Tommy.

His elbows had been resting over the arms of the chair, his hands clasped over his torso, feet crossed out in front of him, and his were eyes closed. He opened them, blinking up at the ceiling before sitting up. He favored his right arm.

“I was naïve, I thought I could make a difference. But you see, it was never about you or me or the Peaky Blinders, or even the IRA. We’re pawns in the game. As to Campbell, it became personal. He wanted to hurt you.”

That lingering softness about his face abruptly fell away and he fixed her with an unwavering stare. “He had everything he needed to do so,” Thomas said, pulling up a freshly lit cigarette. The smoke from that first breath unfurled from his lips like a slow-moving snake.

“If he had been any other man his only interest would have been the guns. I asked him, when I delivered them, to leave you be. Instead, he turned you over to Kimber. We both trusted the wrong people.”

Tommy shook his head, the faintest motion, just once. “No, Grace. I was the only one giving my trust away. More fool me.”

“You’re not a fool, Thomas. You never will be.”

“That song,” he said, staring at his cigarette, “that song you sang me in The Garrison. You warned me. I should have listened.”

They both fell silent. He turned a little to look out the window, his gaze lost in the middle distance. She took the opportunity to drink him in. His eyes she loved best of all, even though they could cut as surely as the razor blade in his cap. In the whisper-soft glow of the oil lamps, she couldn’t see the striations that shot through them. But when they had been in bed that night, she looking down on him, they were as beautiful and changing as cloud wisps in a bright, blue summer sky. He turned those eyes on her, then.

“Where will Agent Grace Burgess go next?”

“I’ve retired.”

“Oh? My black velvet band didn’t like her taste of espionage?”

“No, she did not.”

He made a little hum of agreement, deep in his throat, then stared at her. “Why not before, Grace?”

She couldn’t hold his gaze. “I was afraid that the guns would fall into the hands of the IRA. And I was afraid of abandoning everything my father believed in for a man I’d known less than a year.”

“How prudent.”

“And, before my father’s pension came through, I had no means of supporting myself. As it was, my uncle’s charity was the only thing that kept a roof over my head. My father truly believed I would never need to work. It did me a great disservice.”

“You could have been a barmaid.”

Grace laughed, despite herself, and looked up at him through the curtain of her hair. He wore the thinnest of smiles. “I wish that’s all I was when I met you.”

“If wishes came true, Grace.”

She waited a moment—her fingers curling around each other, her breath held still within her chest—before daring to ask him. “Could I still be your barmaid, Thomas?”

He had been looking down at the floor, when she gave birth to the words. As soon as they fell between them, Tommy looked at her. He stared up at the ceiling for a moment, then rested his forearms on his knees and leaned forward, eating up the space between them. His hands took hers from her lap, holding them loosely. With each thumb, he stroked her skin, whisper-soft, before rising to pull her up and out of her seat. Still holding onto her, he placed her hands over his heart, pressing them there as his palm moved to cradle her jaw. She felt him lean into her, felt his lips whisper over her cheek, her eyelids, her brow. He ran his nose along her neck, breathing her in. In the mornings, Grace used Jasmine water to perfume her skin. In the evenings, she rubbed almond oil along her hands and shoulders. Thomas had watched her perform both these rituals from his place in her bed. First the oil, that night they made love, and then the perfume, the next morning.

Thomas pushed up her hair and curled his hand lightly around the nape of her neck, letting his head rest in the cradle of her collarbone. For a time, he only held her—both of them standing still in the quiet of her flat, penned in by the muted, yellow glow of her bedside lamp. He stroked her neck in slow, featherlike touches.

_Why did he have to be so tender?_

The past bore down on them with unforgiving force, but worse yet was the future, drawing nearer like black, cumulous clouds, enormous and unavoidable. This still moment was only a breath away from breaking. And when it did, it would pull them each in separate directions. Grace began to cry, tears spilling over the rim of her eyelashes without a single sound.

“Come away with me. Or let me stay. Please, let me stay,” she whispered. 

Thomas rested his brow against hers and they both closed their eyes. She felt him shake his head softly. “You said you knew me, Grace.”

She wrapped her arms around him, digging her fingers into his back to bring him closer, to hold him to her. She kept her eyes firmly closed as the words spilled out of her chest and gathered on her tongue. “Here it comes, Tommy.” She tilted her head to the side a little, brushing his cheek with her own, her lips dropping the words straight into his ear. “I love you.”

She trembled with the strength of her grip and he returned it despite the pain in his shoulder, crushing the linen fabric of her blouse in his fist, his face buried against her neck as they embraced. He exhaled once, a dry rasp.

“And there it goes, Grace. Away it goes.”

He pried himself free from her hold, letting go of her. “We can say it as much as we’d like. But it’s gone now.”

Grace turned her back. She scrubbed the tears from her cheeks and walked up to the window, where she wrapped her arms about herself and stood still, waiting. The sound of the doorknob cut through the silence of the room. Her breath hitched in her throat. She heard him pause there.

“Wait.” She hurried to the bedside table. There, upon it sat a letter, sealed into an envelope worn with folds and creases. He was watching her from the threshold. “Take this, please. Read it when you can.”

“What difference will it make, now, Grace? It’s gone.”

She pressed the letter into his hand, closing her fingers around his own. “It’s not. You know it’s not. I’ll be in London one week. Finish your business here and join me. I have an idea.”

Thomas stared at her, unspeaking. He touched her cheek, his eyes flickering over the features of her face, and then he was gone.

* * *

**NOTES**

No copyright infringement is intended with this work and no profit will be gained from it. Peaky Blinders belongs to its creators, producers, and writers (as does the image used for the story’s cover).

**Author’s Notes:**

Peaky Blinders is a phenomenal show. It has its inconsistencies and its moments of melodrama, but, overall, it’s riveting and addictive. I greatly respect what the writers, directors, actors, and production staff have accomplished. That said, I feel that after Season 1, Grace’s character was discarded.

When we first meet Grace, she is a capable woman, if a little too soft for the world she's in. Despite this, she's an agent willing to murder, deceive, betray, and seduce, presumably in the name of vengeance. She gets just enough screen time to justify herself to the audience and to allow us to believe in the romance developing between her and Tommy. Yet, in Seasons 2-3 we see her a total of 15 minutes (if at that) and it seems this Grace has undergone a lobotomy. She's turned into an accessory to Tommy's new role as millionaire tycoon and a vehicle to engineer his grief.

This colorless, society wife is a cardboard cutout. She’s not the same character, nor is she the Grace we are led to expect through the line Tommy delivers in s1e5: "Will you help me? With everything…the whole fucking thing. Fucking life...business. I've found you. And you found me. We'll help each other." 

This failure in Grace's character extends as well to her relationship with Tommy and the credibility of their romance. Who can believe in their love story anymore when she's hardly present and does nothing to help her partner? It's almost a relief when they kill her off at the start of Season 3, if only to spare her character further butchery. Why the writers turned her into a useless prop is beyond me.

This story is my poor attempt at righting the wrong done to her. I will mostly follow the show’s principle events, except here, Grace will act and speak. Our leading lady will get back her voice.

Which brings us to the title. Why _Ophelia_? After _Hamlet’s_ Ophelia, who, like Grace, is a female character stripped of all agency and killed purely for the shock.

P.S. I always found it so strange that her last line in season 1 is “I have an idea.” The writers introduce a loaded statement and then take it nowhere (beyond her plot to sail away to New York), but, I did leave it in for the sake of accuracy.

P.P.S. Most sources point to 1919 as the year when the IRA was formed. If Grace is seeking revenge for their involvement in her father’s death, then that means one of two things: Either the show uses the name of the Irish Volunteers (or other predecessors) and the IRA interchangeably, or Grace was an agent for, at most, a few short months before arriving in Birmingham. I like to think it’s the second, as it fits with her inexperience.

**Historical Notes:**

_Any historical notes below are cobbled together using copy and paste, with editing for brevity and clarity._

-In the show, Grace’s apartment does not have an armchair. Given the size of the apartment and the socioeconomic sphere it represented, the exclusion of an armchair is likely much more accurate than the inclusion of one. But, I wrote myself into a corner and refused to revise (again).

\- I’m not sure what the perks of being Assistant Inspector General in the RIC (see below) were, but have chosen to make it a sort of “lighthouse keeper” deal that involves a house to live in. Completely made up.

\- Metropolitan Police constables carried a revolver during uniformed night time patrols. These were colloquially called ‘**Comforters**.’ This remained the case until 1936.

\- The **Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)** was the police force in Ireland from the early nineteenth century until 1922. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police, patrolled the capital, and the cities of Derry and Belfast.

The RIC's successful system of policing influenced the armed Canadian North-West Mounted Police (predecessor of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police), the armed Victoria Police force in Australia, and the armed Royal Newfoundland Constabulary in Newfoundland.

-I’m uncertain what kind of guns an agent like Grace would be given access to, but **Webley Bulldog Revolvers **were popular, light, & compact. Introduced in 1872, its shorter barrel made it ideal for concealment in a coat pocket. Additionally, the history of the Webley Bulldog is closely linked to the **Royal Irish Constabulary** (and was therefore too tempting to pass up). In the 1860’s the RIC commissioned Webley to design a revolver for them. It was stamped with their initials and came to be known as the RIC Model. Webley produced several versions (marks) of the RIC Model including the British Bulldog. Among others, it was used by “disposable men” or plain clothed detectives in the Dublin Metropolitan Police and the RIC.

They stopped production in 1917, so it might be inaccurate to portray it as her gun of choice. But everything else is spot on!

-There really is a Kinnaird Country House, but it’s in Scotland.

-The **IRA** was created in 1919 as a successor to the _Irish Volunteers_, a militant nationalist organization founded in 1913. 

-During the **Easter Rising** of 1916 (aka the Easter Rebellion), Galway saw 600-700 Volunteers engage in guerilla warfare. Most of the action took place in a rural area to the east of Galway city. They made unsuccessful attacks on RIC barracks, captured several officers, and bombed a bridge and railway line. There was also a skirmish between rebels and an RIC mobile patrol at Carnmore crossroads. A constable, Patrick Whelan, was shot dead after he had called to the rebels: "Surrender, boys, I know ye all".

-There really was a train that moved between Galway and Clifden. Though I’m not sure what hours it kept (did trains run at night in rural areas?).

\- The Soloheadbeg ambush took place on 21 January 1919, when members of the Irish Volunteers (or Irish Republican Army, IRA) ambushed Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officers who were escorting a consignment of gelignite explosives at Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary. Two RIC officers were killed and their weapons and the explosives were seized. The Volunteers acted on their own initiative and had not sought authorization for their action. As it happened on the same day that the revolutionary Irish parliament first met and declared Ireland's independence, it is often seen as the first engagement of the Irish War of Independence.

-I’ve no clue how long pensions took to kick in. I’ve no clue if children could receive them. Therefore, that whole thing might be B.S.

-** Quoins** are decorative rectangles or squares of stone, brick, wood or concrete, placed at the corners of buildings to add architectural interest.

\- **Ear Lingus**: someone with big ears.


	2. I'm Asking You to Stay

I’m Asking You to Stay

1922

The sitting room was wallpapered sage green, in a pattern of gilded fleur-de-lis. A glittering glass chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling, emerging from a plaster medallion, its chain wrapped in gold satin. There was one couch with a matching armchair, upholstered in burnt orange velvet. Between them stood a spindly, mahogany side table, which showcased the wood’s exquisite grain in a highly-polished butterfly pattern. Atop it sat a stained-glassed lamp with two bronze figures holding aloft the milky white lampshade. On the marble mantel were matching toile porcelain vases overflowing with white roses. Above them, a painting of a schooner tossed by a stormy sea at sunset with the waves a translucent blue-green, like glass lit from within.

“It’s beautiful,” Grace said, her T-Strap heels sinking into the short pile of the silk rug.

Thomas stood opposite her, by the fireplace, his hands tucked into the pockets of his three-piece suit, a careful silhouette cast in flickering light. She had only taken in a glimpse of him from the corner of her eye, and he too, had hardly looked at her.

“Ada finds it comfortable.”

“Yes, you mentioned she lived here. How is she?”

“She’s well. Karl is three now,” he said, as they sat, him in the armchair, she on the couch. And then, “Are we really here to talk about, Ada, Grace?”

“What is it we’re here to talk about, then?”

At last, he looked at her, truly looked at her—sweeping his gaze from her black, patent heels to the golden crown of her head.

She had planned her outfit carefully. The day before, she’d chosen her dress at Harrod’s—a teal satin closely draped, decorated at the collar with iridescent lace that fell from her shoulders like the feathers of a peacock.

The attendant, a young red-head, had wrapped her purchases in tissue, telling her “Your husband will be thrilled with this dress, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Thank you,” she’d replied, barely above a whisper, placing the crisp bills upon the counter.

The following evening, at half past five, Grace had begun to style her hair. She’d parted it off-center, spending over an hour at her vanity, layering curls with the hot iron, telling herself there was nothing unusual about wanting to look presentable.

Powder, kohl, rouge, and lipstick followed, applied with a light, careful hand. When Clive had walked in, complimenting her, she’d had to hold her wrist steady as she lined her eyes, for it shook with her nerves. Sweet, gentle Clive.

“When will you be back?” He’d asked.

Grace had looked at him through the mirror, her throat caught in a noose of her own making. Staring down at the compact in her hand, she’d closed it gently, carefully replying “Sometime before midnight, I suspect.”

His hands had landed softly upon her shoulders, sweeping over her collarbone as he leaned down into an embrace. “I’ll wait up.”

_No, _She had wanted to say, _Please don’t._

Grace unfolded her hands from where they rested in her lap, over her beaded clutch, then twisted her engagement ring about her finger. She stared into the fire flickering in the grate, considering how far this betrayal would go. Clearing her throat a little, she said, “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”

With the hand holding his cigarette, Thomas pointed at a delicate table, topped by a mirrored tray filled with liquor and glassware. “Help yourself.”

She waited only a moment, but then rose when she realized he was comfortably reclined and had no intention of serving her. Pulling out two crystal glasses, delicately etched with festoons, she unstopped the whiskey decanter, asking as she poured, “Do you still drink whiskey?”

“Yes.”

“But other things have changed,” she said, handing him his drink before returning to her seat, observing the fine chinoiserie coffee table before her, with gold-leaf peonies against a vivid, red lacquer. “I saw lorries down by the docks, with your name on them.”

“Some things have changed.”

Silence took over them. She stared into her drink, thinking of the last time they had been together in a room, feeling this terrible brick wall building itself, stone by stone, rising between them.

“I wasn’t sure if I should come,” she said, touching the rings on her left hand again. Her skin itched beneath them.

Tommy’s gaze drifted down at the motion, then away. Taking a long drag of his cigarette, he looked straight at her. “Then why did you come, Grace?”

The words came to her immediately, “For the same reason you called, Tommy. Or am I wrong?”

He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply from his cigarette. As the smoke uncurled from his lips, he said abruptly “I lit a fire in the bedroom upstairs.”

Grace wasn’t sure how to reply to that, but he wasn’t finished. Not at all.

“My plan was: we’d sit down here for a while, talk about old times, drink some whiskey. I was going tell you that I hadn’t spent a day without thinking about you. Then we were going to go upstairs and sleep together.” He shook the ash from his cigarette into a crystal ashtray, leaning back into his seat once more, elbows resting easily over the arms of the chair, neck titled a little to the side, as if discussing a particularly banal matter with his brothers. “Just now as I was opening the door, I changed my mind. So, just have one drink, tell me how happy you are in New York, and you can go.”

Blood rushed to her cheeks, warming her face and neck. “You changed your mind?” she breathed.

“Yeah. I did. Have your drink, tell me about New York, and you can go.”

Grace tightened her fist around the delicate glass, imagining the satisfaction of throwing the liquor left in it straight into his arrogant face.

“You thought some conversation and one whiskey was all it would take to get me into bed?”

A glimmer shone in his eye, “I was counting on three whiskies.”

A short bark of laughter escaped her. She knew, in her heart of hearts, what she had come here for, and so did he.

“I am happy, in New York, if you must know. And I am married. My husband is a good man. He’s sweet and gentle and kind.”

“Yet here you are, Grace.”

“Yet here I am.”

She set her glass carefully onto the lacquered table, getting up to stand by the fire. The sound of the logs crackling in the grate cooled the rush of her blood. She watched little embers float up, then fall to the tile like meteors, snuffed into obscurity.

“Do you want to hurt me, Thomas, because I betrayed you or because I built a life without you?”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“Don’t lie, Thomas.”

“There’s only one liar between us, Grace. I wonder what you’ll tell your husband, when tonight’s over.”

A knot formed in her throat; her eyes, dry from the hot fire, watered. Shutting them tightly, she whispered, “That was too far.”

“Grace.”

When she recovered, she pressed on, measuring her words, ensuring they fell between them evenly and flatly. “Is it your pride? The reason you want to make me feel insignificant? Do you want to show me you don’t need me?”

She heard the rustle of his wool trousers as he stood, the whisper of his approach, the warmth of his body at her back.

“What is it you expected, Grace? Should I treat you like before, when I thought you were my future?”

Her eyelids fluttered closed, the hot fire before her. She wanted to lean into him, feel the contours of him pressed along her spine, feel his fingers remove her wedding band, hear his heart beating alongside hers, the echo of it deep inside her chest. She wanted, she wanted, she wanted. The word sailed from her lips like a ship coming slowly into harbor, sweet and steady. “Yes.”

His hands rose to touch her shoulders, his fingers stroked her skin through the lacey collar of her dress. He leaned in, closer, breathing in the scent of her hair. “We can’t pretend anymore, Grace.”

She shook her head. “Then don’t say anything.”

Lightly, he turned her in his arms until she could tuck her brow against his shoulder. “I wasn’t sure,” he said.

“Of what?”

“If you still loved me. If I still loved you.”

“And now?”

“Do you, Grace?”

“Did you light the fire in the bedroom, Tommy?” she whispered.

He stroked her neck, took her chin and tilted it up. “I told you, Grace, I changed my mind.”

She pulled away, feeling his hand slide down her arm as she drew back, catch on the fingers of her hand, and finally release her. Walking to where she’d left her clutch on the couch, she heard him ask something completely at odds with their conversation. Which was a uniquely Thomas-like thing to do.

“Do you like Charlie Chaplain?”

Grace paused, turning her head to look at him over her shoulder. She observed the little Cheshire smile on his lips. “Yes, I like Charlie Chaplain.”

“Come out with me, tonight. I want to impress you.”

“You’ve always impressed me, Tommy.”

“All the same.”

_I met Charlie Chaplain_, she thought, stroking Tommy’s chest in the upstairs bedroom. _I betrayed my husband. _She hid her face into his neck, searching the quiet darkness of that warm, sinewy refuge. His left hand ran the length of her back in soft ellipses, continuously looping over the stepping stones of her spine.

“Is it that time, then? When it becomes real?” He asked quietly.

Beneath her cheek, his chest rose and fell in slow, steady breaths, his heart a lullaby against her ear, soothing the roiling thoughts surging within her. Like a menacing counterpoint, the clock on the bedside table ticked each passing second. It seemed unbearably loud.

“This was wrong.”

“Don’t think about it now.”

“What time is it?”

His torso twisted beneath her, one arm reaching out across the mused sheets towards the clock. She turned to look at the muscles in his shoulder stretch beneath his skin.

“Half past eleven.”

Grace closed her eyes and sat up. “I have to go.”

“Back to the husband who’s sweet and kind?”

She remained seated in bed, her legs hanging over the side, her back to him. “Please, don’t.”

The mattress shifted as he pushed up to lean against the carved headboard.

“You’ve lost your sense of humor, Grace.”

Standing, she hurried to the Windsor armchair by the fire, there she took her slip, which had been neglectfully thrown over the high, leather backrest. Earlier today, she’d slipped into it in the presence of her husband, his eyes had glanced up briefly from his newspaper, then returned to it with a secret smile.

She pulled the peach silk over her head, tugging it down quick and hard enough for the thin straps to dig into her shoulders. Her dress she found on a footrest, neatly draped.

The scent of a cigarette wafted up behind her. Tommy stood by an armoire, shrugging into a fresh shirt, the cigarette hanging from his lips.

“I’ll take you back.”

Her lover, escorting her to the doorstep of the hotel she shared with her husband. What would her father say?

“Just help me hail a cab, please. I’ll be fine. It’s early still.”

Thomas nodded, tucking his shirt into his trousers. She watched him put himself together, piece by piece and that wall between them was nearly up again. She imagined this would be the last time she saw him, because Clive deserved better. And really, what did it matter anymore? She could punish herself tonight, lie awake beside a sleeping husband, stare up into the dark ceiling of the Ritz, contemplate guilt and absolution; wonder about what was, what could have been. But now, now was nearly at an end.

Stepping toe-to-toe with him, she pulled the cigarette gently from his lips, taking a deep drag from it. The warm smoke filled her lungs, the nicotine seeping into her bones. She took his hand, closing his index finger and thumb around the cigarette’s stub. “Hold that, please,” she said, positioning his arm so that it stayed well away from her clothes and hair. Tugging the rest of his shirt closed, she slipped the remaining mother-of-pearl buttons through their eyelets. Thomas stared at her all the while. Those unblinking eyes saw through her skin and into the heart of her.

“Why did you come here, tonight?” The words were whisper-soft.

She paused, laying her hands flat against his chest. His skin was warm and alive beneath her palms. The scent of him—tobacco, sandalwood, and fresh soap—pulled on feelings too powerful to remain idle and quiet. “For the same reason you called.”

“Tell me, Grace.”

The words stuck to the roof of her mouth. He seemed to understand, and instead asked, “When do you leave?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Can I see you again?”

Her thumbs stroked the soft, woven silk of his dress shirt. “It’s wrong, Tommy.”

“I never put much stock into right or wrong.”

She remained quiet.

“Do you remember what you said to me in Birmingham?”

“I said a lot of things, Tommy.”

“You told me you had an idea; told me to find you in London. We’re in London.”

“Thomas—”

“You asked me then, to come away with you. I’m asking you now, to stay.”

The possibility born from that question settled over her shoulders like storm clouds, a dark burden heavy with hope and despair. Though which should win depended on the storm’s outcome. Would it water the parched soil—nurture weak, pale shoots, or sweep them away in a furious torrent?

“Think about it, Grace.”

She nodded, looking down at their feet. “I will,” she said faintly.

His lips touched her brow, and then he led her through the hall, down the stairs, and out into the cold night, to hail a cab that would take her to her husband. That question would echo about her head for weeks to come, trailing behind her through doctor’s appointments and museum visits, ready to wash her world away or build it anew.

“You’ve been absent, lately,” Clive said.

They were in Green Park, having spent the day sightseeing after their latest and last appointment—another inconclusive, rambling explanation, whereby the doctor reviewed, once more, her tubal patency tests from New York, their long line of familial genealogy, their pages of medical history, Clive’s accounts of terrible fevers during his bout with measles. It was recommended they go about their marriage with no expectations, except perhaps for vague hope.

After having been bled of both money and spirit, they decided the only cure for their malady was distraction. So, to Westminster they went. From its neo-gothic spires, they walked to The Mall, beginning at the newly built Admiralty Arch, passing Carlton House Terrace, stopping to visit Victoria at her incomplete memorial, and peering into Buckingham through its wrought iron gates resplendent in gilded wreaths. When a long, rambling hike around the lake in St. James Park left them thirsty and exhausted, they’d stumbled into a café with a wooden placard hanging above the door, marking it as The English Rose. Fortified by earl grey and butter biscuits, they had purchased sandwiches from a trolley on Piccadilly, near the train. These they carried to Green Park, to eat at their leisure under the cool shade of an enormous oak, older than most of Buckingham itself.

Grace took the butcher paper from her lap, folding it over itself into quadrants, trapping the breadcrumbs from her meal within it. “I’ve had a lot to think about,” she told Clive.

He sat beside her, leaning against the weathered oak, his knee propping up a lazily draped forearm. “This whole business,” he began, “it’s damn well unfair, isn’t it?

Their eyes swept out across the park, settling onto a family of four, with a young mother holding close the newest member of her brood—a fat-cheeked baby drooling over his fist. Others dotted the expansive green lawn, appearing like brightly colored confetti strewn by the errant hand of a giant. The rare warmth of a sunny Saturday in London called most of the city’s inhabitants from their dark townhomes and their darker tenements. Rays of sunlight danced through the canopy of whispering leaves overhead, skittering across the exposed skin of her arms and neck. Grace closed her eyes, tilting her head back to feel them shift over her face.

“It doesn’t matter to me, you know,” Clive said beside her, “that we can’t have children.”

She kept still, eyelids closed, listening. Her stomach turned over, the taste of the ham lingered stale and acrid over her tongue.

“We should sail home. Leave this ugly business behind us.”

Taking a deep, quiet breath—catching notes of fresh loam, cut grass—Grace held the sweetly perfumed air within her lungs for several beats of her heart, wishing for a cup of peppermint tea. Exhaling, she told him quietly, “I’d like to visit with family first.”

He removed the wrapping from her lap, setting it onto the ground before them, then tugged on the tasseled hem of her skirt, playing idly with the strands. “Well, I’ve had too much time away from work, but we can carve out a little more. Introduce your proper, British family to a rustic American.”

“Irish,”she corrected.

“Same thing.”

“Clive—”

“Oh, did I put my foot in it, Gracie?” He laughed, “Don’t crucify me for it.”

“I was hoping to visit with them a while.”

“You rascal, you want me to lose my job!”

“I could stay behind.”

The laughter drained out of him. “You mean just you?”

She turned away from his staring, open face. “Yes. It would do me good.”

“Ireland is dangerous now.” He took her hand in his, pulling it towards him to kiss it. “I know things have been hard, but we don’t need a baby to be happy.”

Freeing her hand from his, she tucked back an errant curl.

“I know, but I need time alone.”

His body had been close, his head leaning in next to hers, but at her words he drew back, as if he were a wooden doll, yanked away by its string.

“Time for what, Gracie?” He let his usual smile overcome him, and imbued the question with a bit of laughter, but his eyes remained mirthless.

The park was bustling with bystanders. Children ran nearby, their screams close and sharp. She could hear the loud, boisterous conversation of a group of young men, their wicker hats balanced on their heads like upturned plates.

“Let’s walk back to the hotel.”

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

She gathered up her handbag, unfolding her knees and standing up quickly. “Nothing’s wrong, I’m just missing Galway,” she said, reaching down a hand to pull him up, brushing crumbs from his shirt, smiling. “Come on, let’s get back. It’s late.”

When he made a joke about it, pretending to confuse Galway with Belfast, she knew he wouldn’t pursue the matter.

But such feelings as what she’d begun to express could not be taken back. Given the slightest breath, those sentiments gained form, erupting from the dark corners of their prison, wild and untamable—impossible to put away.

* * *

**NOTES**

No copyright infringement is intended with this work and no profit will be gained from it. Peaky Blinders belongs to its creators, producers, and writers (as does the image used for the story’s cover).

**Historical Notes:**

_Any historical notes below are cobbled together using copy and paste, with editing for brevity and clarity._

\- In 1920, Dr. I. C. Rubin in New York introduced his carbon dioxide insuiliation test to determine tubal patency. **Tubal patency** is when a woman's fallopian tubes are not blocked. ... HSG (hysterosalpingogram) is a standard radiological imaging study that is used to determine if the fallopian tubes are open and free of disease.

\- The Victoria Memorial was unveiled on 16 May 1911, but was not completed until 1924

\- Admiralty Arch was constructed circa 1910.

\- The Mall has been around for centuries, but it’s look has evolved over time, from an unpaved, tree-lined path for sport, to a promenade, to the red, paved road of today (the red was added c. 1950).

\- Until the middle of the 20th century, the most common places to find take-out were major transit hubs, like train stations or the intersections of well-traveled highways.

\- **Butcher paper** is a type of waxed paper that would have been available in sheets from the meat market. It predates Reynold’s wax paper (which was invented in 1927).


	3. Something’s Come Up

Something’s Come Up

1922

The town of Epsom sat 15 miles southwest of London. For most of the year, the red-bricked, terraced houses lining High Street—presided over by the Epsom Clock Tower with its newly installed toilets—and the Georgian cottages on the verdant countryside were home to less than 3,000 inhabitants. These men and women went about their insular lives in the manner most Surrey folk did: quietly and pastorally. On Sundays, in the shadow of the neo-gothic tower of Saint Martin of Tours Church, residents caught up on gossip. Ladies stood round in their cloche hats and flowing, pastel dresses, like clusters of capped flowers swaying in the wind—their menfolk lingering nearby in groups of two’s or three’s. There was talk of marriages, affairs, scandals, and flamboyant London visitors—made possible thanks to Epsom’s extraordinary rail service. It was this rail service which allowed Epsom’s yearly transformation from a market town where bees could be heard buzzing between window boxes, into a metropolis rivaling the noisy, mad population of New York.

The Derby fell on June 6th, and, as it always did, seemed to draw the entirety of London, cramming the city into the too-small Epsom. The Metropolitan police, along with the Surrey Constabulary, deployed over 2,000 officers to the Downs. Disposable men and uniformed constables disappeared within the teeming mass of visitors crowding High Street. Bodies shuffled side-by-side, pressed against the metal frames of coaches, buses, char-à-bancs, and motors, all crawling in disorderly lines towards the racecourse.

A whistle pierced through the roar of the crowd, originating from the lips of a red-cheeked officer standing upon an upturned crate, furiously pointing and shouting: “Mind your lane! Motors to stay to the right! Motors right! Horses to the left!”

From her bench seat in the tall char-à-banc, Grace could look out across an ocean of hats, bobbing along beside her. Early that morning, she had boarded one of the hundreds of race-day specials going into Epsom, purchasing a ticket into the rundown Epsom Town station. She would have much preferred Tattenham Corner, but the proximity of that line to The Derby made it nearly impossible to secure passage. This didn’t seem so terrible when they were circling round outside Epsom, and the char-à-banc pottered through pitted country roads, jarring her like a bit of cork in the Thames. But now, the speed of the coach could be outpaced by a woman carrying a heavy burden.

The air was ripe with the odors of sweat and petrol. Across her brow, perspiration rose in beads, caught by the band of her hat. The woman sitting beside her was tucked into her side, the heat from her body an intolerable furnace. Grace squeezed herself more tightly against the door, leaning her elbow out over the coach, minding she didn’t knock off some poor man’s hat. She thought of asking the chauffer to stop, that she would walk the rest of the way. But the rest of the way was three miles in white leather heels, pressed between the shoulders of the mass marching alongside them.

She began to carefully extricate herself from her coat. The whisper pink silk, with its collar of ivory fur, perfumed overnight on its hanger with lavender sachets, had provided warm comfort in the chill of early morning.

Her neighbor spoke up beside her, “That’s a lovely color. It goes very well with your pink dress.”

“Thank you.”

“But it is awfully hot, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Grace gave the slightest of smiles, turning her head away, but the woman remained undeterred.

“The track is going to be like flint in this heat. Best not to bet on those who like a soft going. Is this your first time to The Derby?”

“I’ve been once or twice,” she replied.

“We come all the time, don’t we Henry?” The woman looked to the man on her other side. “It’s really quite the to-do. If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re dressed pretty enough to be in The Club. Did your party leave without you?”

“I’m meeting them there.”

She gave a girlish squeal, “My goodness, you are going to The Club! Do tell! I’ve never managed it, not knowing the right people of course.”

Grace mentioned an uncle with a membership—a decorated Major-General.

“How lovely. I have a brother in the Navy. He served at—“

She continued, but Grace wasn’t paying close attention to her. On the side of the road, a merchant sold fried cod from a wooden stand. Beside him, another enterpriser had converted his motorbike into a three-person rickshaw, with a hand-lettered sign reading “Derby Non-Stop. 1s.” As he haggled with a passerby over the one-shilling fare, the fish vendor lowered a fresh batch into a scalding pot of oil. The wind shifted, throwing the rising smoke into their faces. She clenched her jaw against the bile crawling up her esophagus.

“You’ve gone pale, Mrs. Macmillan. Are you alright?”

“I’m sorry, I’ve not been feeling well, today. Would you mind terribly if I closed my eyes for a time?”

The woman tittered an apology, mercifully turning to her husband.

From behind her closed eyelids, Grace could hear the cadence of her voice rising and falling, drawing others around her into conversation. The smell of the cod fell behind them.

Grace turned her face outward, to the tall trees that bent their limbs into a bower over the road, their quivering limbs upraised like sheltering arms. She drew small circles over her belly with the hand resting in her lap and tried to imagine telling Tommy. In her mind, she pictured his face: his blue eyes deep-set beneath a smooth brow; thin, pale lips; the cheekbones and jaw all sharp, fine angles. Would those piercing eyes soften or harden at her announcement? She found herself too uncertain of his reaction to know.

The three miles stretched on like eighteen, Ashley Road spooling out before her in a never-ending thread of towering trees, brick cottages, a pastoral cemetery. It seemed to move further into the distance the longer they traveled. And yet, when she caught sight of the Grand Stand, the building a small, square blot on the horizon, her stomach slid up into her throat.

When they arrived at the Downs, she was helped from the coach by Henry, her neighbor’s husband.

“Easy does it,” he told her, holding onto her hand firmly as her heels struggled to manage the tiny footrest. Their row had the smallest door, placed over the wheel’s fender, with an elevated metal footrest to offer a platform for egress. It was a long way to the ground.

Holding onto her coat and the door with one arm, and onto Henry’s elbow with the other, she found solid footing on the soft, green grass. Grace thanked him and his wife, then turned to look out over the crowd.

She could hardly see through the wall of sweaty necks, stained collars, wide hat brims, fluttering fans. The crush formed a mass of slow-moving bodies, malodorous and hot beneath the summer sky. Grace tried to regulate her breathing, feeling like a flightless bird swarmed by ants. There was no recourse but to push against shoulders, turn herself into a sliver of flesh to squeeze in-between narrow gaps, mumble apologies, and shuffle towards the Grand Stand, her short heels sinking into the earth with every step.

Her chances of finding Tommy in such a crush were as likely as the miller’s daughter from the fairytale spinning gold. But she had no Rumpelstiltskin to bargain with. Grace turned to walk towards the paddock. If he had a horse in the race, then the paddocks were as likely a place to start.

Once she passed the paddock supervisor, the crowds began to thin and the attire of the spectators changed. Bowlers and boaters became high hats, suits turned into morning dress, brogues into cap-toed Oxfords. Her silk coat was no longer out of place. She slid into it, smoothing it over the dusty pink chiffon of her dress, where her lace gloves caught on the beaded neckline.

Grace paused in a corner of the paddock, her eyes sorting through high hats, picking out the flat caps among them, then, the faces of their owners. He had her back to her, but she knew the shape him, the manner of his stance. He was clear across on the opposite end and already in motion, walking with fast, aggressive steps that ate up the ground under him and placed him further out of her reach. She hurried, side-stepping man and horse alike, trying to keep up with him, but his figure wove into and out of sight, first obscured by a group in conversation, then by a bookmaker, or else by enormous advertisements. She pushed through the crowds outside the paddock, catching a fleeting glance of his flat cap as he headed towards the Luncheon Annexe.

Her breath came quick and short when she managed to catch his arm just on the steps leading up to the double-doors of the building.

Thomas caught her hand in a vice-like grip, throwing it from his forearm; he nearly struck her. And then he saw her.

“Grace! What are you doing here?”

“I need to speak with you.”

His eyes darted towards the uniformed men ahead of them, then back to her. She could see the gun holstered inside his jacket, the beads of sweat on his brow, how his fingers clenched tightly into fists. He tried very obviously to stay within the queue on the steps.

“Now?” he asked, looking again at the men.

She let go of his arm, understanding. “Finish whatever it is you’re doing. I’ll wait outside the champagne tent—the one closest to the paddock.”

He squeezed her hand once, then leaned in to whisper “Stay away from the winning post and the King’s Box. There’s going to be an uproar later.”

She nodded, letting him go. “Godspeed,” she whispered, the words chasing after him, released in a breath of fearful hope.

Thomas did not find her again at The Derby. Grace waited until well after the crowds began to thin. It had been some time since the winning horse, Captain Cuttle, was led to the King’s Box, after which the uproar Thomas promised took place. Armed officers rushed from the champagne tent, joining their colleagues in a mad gallop. Speculation began to circulate, whispers passing from exited speaker to attentive listener. It was said that King George was hastily escorted from his box and into his Daimler Tourer by a centurion of constables.

She sat at a small table in a bentwood bistro chair, looking through the open flaps of the tent onto the back of the Grand Stand. Outside, pamphlets, racing forms, tip sheets, and tickets littered the ground, left behind by their disappointed owners, who likely went home poorer than they arrived.

“Mrs. Macmillan.”

The voice stilled the blood in her veins. She stood up from her seat, taking a step back. “How dare you speak to me.”

Campbell held his derby hat in both hands, turning it over in circles, face cast down towards the ground. His wolf’s head cane leaned against a nearby table. “You’re right, of course. I only wished to—“

Grace hurried past him, forcefully knocking against his shoulder. He stumbled, barely catching himself on his bad leg. Only the barkeep was left within the tent, and though she didn’t think he’d try to shoot her in his presence, she wanted nothing to do with the man.

“Do _not_ follow me,” she whispered, throwing the words over her shoulder.

But Campbell did follow.

She stopped abruptly just outside, in plain view of the barkeep, the workers setting the track to rights, and the last of the stragglers.

He walked up to her with his three-footed gait, leaning heavily against his cane, which, she noted with great pleasure, sunk into the dirt.

“Please, I only wished to apologize, for wronging you.”

“You did not wrong me, Mr. Campbell, you tried to kill me.” She wanted to spit at his feet, like a lowly fishwife or a traveler, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she set her jaw and spat out her next words: “Listen to me well, I never wish to see or speak to you again. If my father were alive, he’d have killed you himself. But as he’s dead, I will gladly do so the next time you cross my path.”

“If your father were alive he’d have killed Thomas Shelby first. He’s no good for you. You should—“

“You have no right to tell me who’s good for me. As to Thomas, you aren’t fit to polish his shoes.”

Campbell cleared his throat, staring at the ground. Grace kept her eyes firmly locked on him, measuring the distance between them and the placement of his hands.

“Right, well, be that as it may, your father would be glad if you shook yourself free of whatever traveler magic Shelby has woven over you. A husband deserves fidelity if not love. Perhaps, in time you’ll realize the favor I’ve done you today.”

From his waistcoat, he withdrew his pocket watch. “Any minute now.”

Goosebumps pebbled her flesh, a shiver working its way from the crown of her head to the ends of her toes. “You gave me your word once, as a gentleman. It’s since become apparent you’re no gentleman and your word is worthless. You pretend to despise Thomas for his crimes, but your real hatred stems from this: he is the man you will never be.”

He didn’t reply.

“Tell me what you’ve done.”

Setting his hat upon his head again, he said, “I’m afraid I don’t take your meaning.”

“I would take care, Mr. Campbell. Unlike you, the Shelby’s keep their word.”

Grace hurried away from him, feeling her heart beating in her throat. She glanced over her shoulder once, her fingers clasped tightly before her, but he had already gone. Her hands trembled as she gripped the white, wooden barrier before the racecourse. She had no way of knowing where Thomas or his family were, but she knew the Surrey gypsies were camped on Lady Sybil Grant’s estate, less than two kilometers away, and she knew Thomas worked frequently with gypsies.

Just up ahead, on The Hill, she could see a gaily painted vardo, with three figures clustered before it. She ducked under the barrier, crossing the dusty track where only hours before thirty of England’s finest thoroughbreds had thundered towards the winning post. The Hill was a large expanse of grass circled by the racecourse and though near to the Grand Stand, it took her several hundred meters to traverse. When at last she approached the red vardo, her feet blistered within her heels, the man sitting on the step rose to doff his cap. The woman remained over her blanket on the ground, a thin toddler half asleep in her lap and an array of charms and oak leaves spread out for sale before her.

“What can I do for ye, Miss?”

“Do you know Thomas Shelby?”

The man threw back his head and laughed. “Aye, I know him. What would you need with him?”

“His family and the Lees. Do you know where they are? Right now?”

“Aye, Miss. I can’t say though, as I’m not sure of your connection. But I will say this, Mrs. Gray is here somewhere.”

“Polly Gray?”

“The one and only.”

“Can you find her and deliver a message?”

“Aye, for a price.”

“If you have paper and pen, I’d be glad to pay the asking rate, double, if you can manage to get it to her within the hour.”

Grace paid him fifteen shillings, an exorbitant amount. “Give this to Polly. If you can’t find her, then you can give it to Johnny Dogs, Arthur, or John Shelby,” she said, pressing the letter carefully into his hands. “Please. It’s very important.”

The soft sheets of her hotel room seemed like wire wool that night, catching against her skin, tangling around her waist. She remained awake, staring up into the dark ceiling. When she did sleep, she woke on the tail end of nightmares; terrible dreams where Campbell cut out her heart. His arms, bloody to the elbows, dug through her open chest while she said tonelessly, “Give me your word.” This phrase she chanted over and over as he plucked out her ribs. Her beating heart Campbell would serve on white Wedgwood china, placing it upon a finely dressed table with only one setting. In the single chair, sat Tommy, ready and waiting to receive his meal with a wry smile. Another of these dark visions showed her a freshly-tilled grave. Into the interminable void of its gapping maw, Thomas was pushed by a red hand. He tumbled endlessly in that black abyss, becoming smaller and smaller until he disappeared altogether.

Over the blue damask curtains, the faint light of dawn crept into the room, softly crawling across the buttery yellow wallpaper, the white, coffered ceiling, and the polished wooden floors. It was a benediction, allowing her to rise from her sweaty sheets. She left those awful dreams trapped in the wooden bedstead, sinking her feet into the Turkish rug and pressing her fingers into her closed eyelids.

Her beautiful Derby attire hung in the wardrobe with sachets of lavender. She drew out the dress, bringing it close to her nose. It could stand another wear, and, if paired with a casual cloche, she might get away with it.

She had finished curling her hair when a knock came at the door. Smoothing down the chiffon dress, Grace paused before the door to peer through the peephole. Immediately, she unlocked it.

He stood on the threshold, his hands tucked into his pockets, a cigarette hanging from his lips, crisply dressed in a grey, herringbone suit with matching waistcoat. His easy look couldn’t hide the scab above his brow, the scratches on his neck, or the bruising on one cheek.

She pulled him into the room, closed the door behind him, then wrapped her arms under his jacket and around his shoulders, holding him lightly, afraid of what other wounds she might find.

“Nothing’s broken, Grace” he said, pressing into her.

“Where have you been?”

His arm came up around her, his other pulled the cigarette from his lips. “In a graveyard.”

Grace drew back to look at him, the nightmarish vision of that endless void rose to the forefront of her mind. “I dreamed of a grave you fell into.”

The cigarette he’d been raising to his lips paused midair. Thomas stared at her. “There might be a touch of gypsy blood in you. It’d explain whatever spell you’ve caught me in.”

Her fingers traced the broken skin by his temple. “You were in a fight.”

His laughter was dry. “One or two.”

“Campbell, he did something, didn’t he?”

“Campbell is dead.”

For a moment neither of them spoke, he, measuring her reaction, she, wondering how a good Protestant girl could feel joy at such news. “I’m glad,” she finally told him.

Tommy swept his eyes over her dress, his fingers played with the beaded bow at her chest. “I didn’t have time, to appreciate this yesterday. But I have time now. What was so urgent you came all the way to The Derby?”

“What makes you think I was there only for you?”

A smile worked its way over his eyes. “You wrote Polly a letter and paid David fifteen shillings to deliver it. Polly, Grace.”

“Circumstantial evidence, at best.”

“Your husband sailed to New York three weeks ago.”

“Something came up.”

“What came up, Grace?”

She took his wrist, bringing his hand down to her waist, pressing it into her abdomen, which over the passing weeks had grown firm and would wax full and round in the coming months.

Tommy stared at their hands upon her stomach. His fingers flexed against her dress, lightly stroking her through the fabric. The silence between them felt electric.

“Are you—“

“Yes.”

“Fuck.”

She looked away from him, swallowing thickly and clearing her throat. “Come sit down. I’ll order some tea.”

“Tea, right.”

When she returned, Thomas was sitting on the couch, his elbows resting on his thighs, one hand hanging between his knees, the other holding onto a fresh cigarette. He was taking deep, long drags, burning through it quickly. When he finished, he lit another.

Grace set a glass ashtray before him, then went to the window, unlocking it and pulling up the sash. A fresh breeze blew her hair back.

“Does it bother you?”

“No, it’s alright.”

He ground the cigarette into the glass, putting it out. “Come here.”

She walked over to him, sitting beside him.

“Is it mine?”

Grace nodded.

“How can you know?”

“We were here for treatment—in two years we hadn’t been able to conceive.”

“And what if you did manage it?”

“We didn’t. The doctor instructed us to wait while we were tested. He hadn’t touched me in weeks.”

Taking hold of her jaw, he looked straight into her, his electric eyes touching the deepest corners of her soul. “This would be a lie I could never forgive you for. Swear it to me, Grace.”

A knock ran out, clear and loud. “Tea service!”

She placed her hands over his own, curling her fingers lightly around his. “I swear it, Thomas Shelby, by the graves of my father and brother, may they strike me dead.”

He held her stare for a long while, then pressed his forehead against hers. “A baby,” he breathed against her ear.

“Yes, a baby.”

“Fuck me.”

“I think that’s what got us here.”

His laugh caught against her neck, but when he drew back, the smile had fallen away from his face. “Tell me what you want, Grace.”

The knock came again, more insistent. “Tea service!”

Grace got up to open the door. The waiter on the other side gave her an impressive sneer as he hurried in to drop his heavy burden over the coffee table. “Will that be all, Ma’am?”

She nodded. When the footsteps echoed down the hall, she turned to Thomas with a secretive smile.

“Are you a man who drinks tea?”

The memory of that evening wove itself around them. She could see it playing across the softness in his eyes.

“Only when the alternative is rum,” he finally replied.

She dropped one sugar cube into the cup, and, gripping the handle of the blue toile teapot, poured the hot tea over it, watching the crystals dissolve. Steam rose up wetly against her skin. Setting the pot carefully onto the silver tray, her fingers smarting a little from the boiling touch of the porcelain, she topped the black tea with a tablespoon of milk, handing the cup and saucer to Thomas.

He took an obligatory sip, then placed it onto the coffee table. “What do you want, Grace?”

She cradled the teacup in her lap, running her thumb over the smooth sides. “I want this child. I want to raise him with you.

Their mood ebbed and flowed like the tide, rising in one moment and falling in the next. The jokes and their joy overshadowed by the rings on her finger.

Thomas touched first the wedding band, then the sharp diamond of the engagement ring. “These come off.”

“I want to visit him, to ask for a divorce. It shouldn’t be done over the telephone.”

“I’ll come with you, to New York, when you do.”

She nodded. “Alright, then.”

“Do you think Polly would plan the wedding?”

“She might plan my funeral if you ask nicely.”

Grace moved closer to him, tucking herself into his side, resting her head on his shoulder. His arm came up around her back, to stroke the nape of her neck. “The doctors, they weren’t sure who was at fault. You understand this might very well be our only child?”

He leaned down to give her a long, hard kiss. “It won’t be for lack of trying, I’ll promise you that.”

“I’m serious, Thomas.”

He titled her chin up, so she would look at him. “So am I.”

* * *

**NOTES**

No copyright infringement is intended with this work and no profit will be gained from it. Peaky Blinders belongs to its creators, producers, and writers (as does the image used for the story’s cover).

**Author’s Notes:**

This is where the story begins to deviate a little from canon. Going forward, Grace will have a more active role in her relationship with Tommy.

**Historical Notes:**

_Any historical notes below are cobbled together using copy and paste, with editing for brevity and clarity._

-The Epsom Derby is the most prestigious of The Classics, the crème of the crème of English horseracing. In the early 20th century, The Derby was arguably the most prestigious horserace in the world. Horses entered into the Derby must be three-year-olds, colts and fillies only (no geldings, as the point is to further the sport, which requires breeding winners). During the Derby, there are smaller races held, where younger or older horses may race.

There is an astounding amount of information, videos, figures, charts, maps, and accounts of the event (with plenty covering the 1920’s). It was in many ways a national holiday, parliament closed and thousands upon thousands took special rail service to Epsom. The 1922 Derby fell on June 6th and featured 30 horses, the largest field since 1914. There is an excellent, but small, article from The Daily Racing Form, an American periodical, which recalls the day being “scorching” and the field “hard as flint.” Captain Cuttle, ridden by the very popular jockey Stephan Donoghue won, setting a record time and a record prize winning. Steve Donoghue is the only jockey to have ridden three consecutive Derby winners – Humorist (1921), Captain Cuttle (1922) and Papyrus (1923).

-Racing was not a profitable sport. Racetracks, even at the height of their popularity, did not make grand profits. Neither did horse owners, who made very little on the winnings—apart from the considerable cost of raising a thoroughbred, in the UK, owners put up most of the prize money for races (more so than anywhere else in the world). For most, horseracing was a leisurely activity and a passion project. True gentlemen in the late 19th century and the early 20th century were said to breed their own thoroughbreds, to further the sport. Purchasing bloodstock, as Tommy did, signaled new money.

-The Met Police and the Surrey Constabulary did employ over 2,000 men to police it (the year before they’d even used a dirigible to patrol from the skies).

-I couldn’t find the population of Epsom in 1922, thus the figure of 3,000 is absolutely made-up.

\- Epsom Clock Tower does exist and it did have newly-built public toilets in the 1920s (public restrooms were much harder to find back in the day and an indicator of modernity and progress).

\- Saint Martin of Tours Church is a real church in Epsom

-**Disposable men** were undercover officers

-In an effort to lessen traffic, police created separate lanes for different kinds of transport (horses, motors, buses, pedestrians)

-**Char-à-banc**: a type of horse-drawn vehicle or early motor coach, usually open-topped, common in Britain during the early part of the 20th century. It has "benched seats arranged in rows, looking forward, commonly used for large parties, whether as public conveyances or for excursions.” More common spellings today have it as “charabanc,” but sources from the early 20th century show it as “char-à-banc.” Although, this spelling might have already begun to fall out of favor by the 1920’s (couldn’t find a solid answer on that).

\- The Epsom Town station closed in 1929, thus why I chose to describe it as “rundown” though I don’t actually know if it was in disrepair in 1922.

-The crowds at Epsom could rival, in looks if not in numbers, the sorts of crowds one might expect for major national sporting events. In the early 20th century, crowds could range in the tens of thousands, around 30,000 – 70,000.

It was also a spectacle of entertainment: Gypsies sold lucky charms or read fortunes; vendors set up stalls offering lunches or beer; families picnicked on the lawn; friends ate atop small, double-decker buses; owners sat on the roof of their cars, which parked by the hundreds; spectators donned outrageous outfits; bookies took bets with loud shouts; religious zealots tried to save the sinning masses; advertisers filled every available inch with large signs; and bombastic personalities dressed in elaborate costumes to sell tip sheets (like the self-named Prince Monolulu, famous at the Derby and who actually won his bet in 1920 and made a fortune).

\- A **Major-General** in the British army is a very high post, only a couple of ranks below General. The word was typically hyphenated before the 1980’s.

\- **Grandstand**: A grandstand is a large and normally permanent structure for seating spectators, most often at a racetrack. At Epsom in 1922, the Grandstand would have been a large structure with over four stories of seating. In the early part of the 20th century, most writers seem to spell it as two words, _Grand Stand_, which is why I’ve chosen to spell it thusly.

\- **Luncheon Annexe**: Behind the Grandstand, connected by a bridge, was another large building in the Renaissance style with three or more stories. Built in 1914, it was used as a hospital during WWI. In our story, it serves as the dining room Tommy visits. Sadly, it was demolished in the 2000s.

\- Despite the incredible resources available documenting Derby Day at Epsom, there is little to nothing online about the experience of a VIP at the event. How much did tickets cost? Through where did VIPs enter? What areas did they stay in? What did accommodations look like? I found only one vague mention in a diary account of “The Enclosure” costing £1 (year unknown). One source mentions the Ascot race, which had the exclusive areas of the “Royal Enclosure,” by invitation-only, or the “Royal Box,” which was even more selective.

Further research indicates that members of distinct racing clubs were entitled to special areas, and gentlemen were given two ladies’ passes with their membership. I’ve chosen to make Grace’s uncle the holder of one such membership, and thus how she was granted access to areas where she has a likelier chance of running into Thomas (an owner). Although I’m unsure if Grace, as a guest of her uncle (who wasn’t himself present at the Derby) would have been able to make use of his lady’s ticket. Most of what little I was able to gleam on racing culture in England came from the book, _Horseracing and the British 1919-1939_ by Mike Higgins (specifically chapter 5).

-**The Paddock**: this is the area where horses are saddled and then marched off for the parade. I’ve chosen in this story to make it an exclusive area for VIPs such as owners, members (their guests), trainers, and jockeys. It can sometime be an owners, trainers, and jockeys only area, however, I’ve no idea if that was the case in 1922. Resources specifying such details are hard to find.

\- King George owned Daimler All-Weather Tourers for several, consecutive years. Talk about brand loyalty.

\- There were areas in racetracks that were inaccessible to women, or at the very least, socially inappropriate for a woman to visit. In the early 1900’s, the betting ring would have been one such area. By the 1920s, these rules began to relax, but only just. It’s possible that the champagne tent where Grace waits for Tommy in this chapter might not have admitted her, especially alone. I couldn’t find a concrete answer on that and thus chose to leave it in.

\- I’m not entirely sure how many hours the racetrack, and all its amenities, would remain open after the last race.

\- **Surrey** (the area Epsom is found in) is still home to the fourth largest **Gypsy** and traveler community in Britain. Gypsies were a part of the races for centuries. They would set up their caravans on The Downs to supply racing folk with goods and services. The eccentric author and actress, **Lady Sybil Grant**, allowed them to stay on her lands during Derby Week starting in 1930—following her father’s death in 1929, whereupon she inherited the Durdans Estate, located only a mile from the racecourse. She had her own caravan and would sometimes join them. I’ve anachronistically inserted her into the story, as it was much too interesting and convenient not to.

-**Traveler**: another word for Gypsy, specifically in Ireland (spelled _Traveller _outside the US).

\- The British Pathe has fascinating videos of the Derby in the early 20th century. I highly recommend Googling them. The Epsom and Ewell History Explorer website is also excellent, as is the BBC’s local page on Surrey, and their gallery on The Epsom Derby.


	4. This is Who We Are

This is Who We Are  
1924

Four years ago, she sat before an oak vanity at The Plaza Hotel in New York City. The mirror, through which she’d secured a heavy cathedral veil into her hair with the help of a maid, reflected the view of Central Park outside the window: horses pulled coaches stuffed with riotous tourists, snug beneath musty, woolen blankets; businessmen crossed the wide street in a headlong dash, hardly waiting for the carriages and motors to pass; ladies in fur-trimmed coats carried their colorful parcels in both arms, or a maid did the carrying, trailing at a marked distance behind them. All this played out upon a stage of dusty city streets, hemmed in by buildings reaching towards the cloudless sky, at the heart of which grew an unexpected park—a woodland incongruous with the man-made world around it—dressed in vibrant oranges and reds.  


In stark contrast to the fall foliage reflected by the vanity’s mirror, she was dressed in white—the color for first-time brides, so established by a young Victoria, nearly one hundred years ago. Her uncle had greeted her outside the hotel, waiting for her by a black Rolls-Royce. His smile upon seeing her reminded Grace of her father. They shared the same strong jaw, long nose, oval eyes, and straw-blonde hair. Sometimes, when she glanced at him quickly or from the periphery, she could almost pretend it was her _daid_, stern-faced as he always was, in his black coat with matching bowler, reaching to tuck her arm into the crook of his elbow where he would pat her hand gently from time to time as they went on long, quiet walks after her brother was killed.

“You look like an angel, dove. As pretty as your mother.”

If he had lived beyond 1919, these were the words he might have told her. Instead, her uncle, having sailed across the Atlantic for her wedding, was the one who delivered them that cool day in New York, beneath the portico of The Plaza.

Now, years later in Warwickshire, England, her uncle would not need to travel quite so far. Indeed, Grace thought, affixing an amethyst earing, her family might have preferred the excuse of a transatlantic voyage, to politely decline her invitation. As it was, only four of her father’s siblings and a handful of cousins agreed to bless the wedding.

Grace stared at the woman reflected in the large mirror over the polished vanity. She was a woman four years older than the one who’d stood in that Plaza room, a mother once over, with shorter hair styled into finger curls, a widow, and she could not wear white. Her dress this time was lilac silk, with a drop-waist, chiffon panels flowing down either shoulder, and a lace overlay, in the same color, sewn carefully over the loose bodice, along which a row of abalone pearl buttons ran from collar to navel.

Mary, the head housekeeper, appeared in the mirror at her back. In her hands, she held a royal purple veil made of silk organza, chapel length, with a Spanish blonde lace blusher dyed to match. Linda, the only woman in the Shelby family who didn’t have reason to dislike her, helped bury the comb at the back of her head. Between them, to further support it, they added Kirbigrips. Their blunt edges dug painfully into her scalp, and she closed her eyes against the pain.

“Forgive me, Mrs. Macmillan. I want to make sure this lovely bit of silk doesn’t stay halfway down the aisle.”

Grace gave a soft laugh, “If that’s all that went wrong today, Mary, I’d be a very happy bride.”

“I’m sure God will give you the day you deserve,” Linda said.

Grace wondered what sort of day a woman like Linda could wish upon an adulteress with a child two-years out of wedlock. A maid and a zealot, the latter of which cared little for her; these were her only companions in the bridal chamber, where neither cantankerous Polly nor jaded Ada deigned venture.

She remembered, years ago as a young woman, visiting the National Gallery in Dublin, accompanied by her brother, together as they always were on their adventures. An exhibition of the Royal Collection was on tour, with a painting of Queen Victoria on her wedding day. She stood before the canvas, boring her brother with her examination. It was an enormous piece, at least 250 centimeters across, with smooth, nearly imperceptible brushstrokes. In it, the young Queen stood beside Prince Albert, surrounded by her court of ladies, twelve women in airy, white dresses, like swans floating over a lake. Some of them must have been Victoria’s friends, perhaps even close companions. Grace longed for a mother, a sister, a cousin, a confidant to stand behind her now, to fiddle with her hair and her veil, to hand her a cup of hot tea with a wink and a squeeze of her shoulder.

She longed for her father. At this moment, he would be waiting in the sitting room downstairs, with a glass of whiskey, watching the staff hurry from door to door, carrying vases of flowers or linens. Her brother would lounge beside him on the couch, curved into the shape of the cushions, neck thrown lazily over the backrest, wrinkling his suit as he read The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He’d never had the opportunity to finish it.

Grace closed her eyes tightly, picturing Charlie in the nursery, held in his father’s arms—both of them waiting for her. The image of his silky, brown hair, his button nose, his perfect face red-cheeked, aglow with fresh, new joy. And Thomas. Her Thomas, looking dapper in his wedding suit, blue eyes soft at the edges as he played with their boy. The tears caught behind her eyelids stopped gathering. She blinked them away carefully, ensuring the two women behind her saw nothing of them.

As Mary and Linda finished securing the veil, their hands slowly falling away to see if it would hold, the weight of the organza—which seemed no more than a feather in her arms—felt like an anchor clipped into her hair. It was, in some ways, a relief, for that small discomfort moored her firmly in the present, holding her steady against the current of memory and desire.

Kneeling, Mary spread the veil pooled on the floor, opening it out behind her, so that the lace flowers sewn at the hem sat flat over the rug.

“You look beautiful, Grace,” Linda said, smoothing the veil carefully.

“You’re a vision, Mrs. Macmillan. Mr. Shelby will have a shock today.”

Her heart gave a girlish flutter at the thought and she smiled. “Let’s hope so.”

“Oh, I know so. Begging your pardon for the imprudence, Mrs. Macmillan.”

“I won’t tell the priest if you start calling me Mrs. Shelby now, Mary.”

“I’ll be happy to say it, as will Mr. Shelby, no doubt.”

Linda walked to the chaise, where the bouquet of calla lilies, heliotrope, sweet peas, and lily-of-the-valley rested. “That he will, after two years of waiting.”

Pulling the blusher over her face, mindful of the laboriously styled finger curls, Grace tried to make out her reflection in the mirror through the heavy Spanish lace. Rather than respond to Linda’s quip, she remarked instead on the disorienting effect of the blusher, “I can hardly see through this.”

Linda stood before her, “This might actually succeed in unnerving the unshakable Thomas Shelby.”

“Why, you could be another woman under there. Your face is completely obscured.”

“That hadn’t been the objective,” Grace replied, finding a thin bit of lacework through which to peek. She stared at the willowy figure of a faceless woman with a dark veil and flowers in her folded hands—the walnut edge of the mirror like the outline of a coffin. Goosebumps crawled up her arms; her soul shuddered within its setting, as if it had come loose. She felt like a wraith staring at its corpse. Grace tried to remove the blusher hastily, while Linda took the bouquet from her nervous hands. The lace caught on the diamond headband and Mary had to help her unhook a thread of silk from a silver prong.

“What’s wrong?” Linda asked her.

“Nothing at all.” She took the bouquet back with a tight smile. “I just feared I’d break my neck on the stairs.”

Mary tutted, “Oh, nonsense, Mrs. Macmillan. No one here would let you come to harm. We should hurry along now. Mrs. Shelby, I’ll have the car brought round. It wouldn’t do to get there after the bride.”

At the foot of the stairs, her uncle waited, dressed in the handsome red coat of the Royal Irish Dragoons, as she’d specifically requested he not do. All his medals were pinned in a row over his heart on the left side of his chest. On the right, hung golden aiguillettes, looped through the epaulet at his shoulder. Under his arm, he held a plumed hat tucked into his side. At his left hip, from a tasseled, golden sash, was his sword. His white gloves where spotless, as were his tall dress boots. He wore no smile, not like he had four years ago outside the Plaza, and his eyebrows were set closely together, wrinkling his brow. He looked most like her father when sporting that somber, disapproving face.

“Hello, Uncle Connor.”

“Grace. You look lovely.”

She rose up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Thank you. You look a little too serious.”

Clearing his throat, he extended his arm for her to take. “Let’s not dredge things up now.”

“I might not make it to the church if we do.”

“Oh, you’ll be married today, child. Even if I have to draw my sword to manage it.”

“Thomas needs no incentive, Uncle.”

Cornelius scoffed, “He hardly waited for Clive to be lowered into the ground. You’re sure that divorce wasn’t signed in blood?”

“Thomas is a persuasive businessman, used to getting what he wants.”

He took the hand in the crook of his arm, gripping it firmly. Tugging them to a halt, he turned to face her. His blue eyes studied her face with a frown. “I can pretend that’s true, for your sake. That’s not my first concern. I don’t condone the things you’ve done, but no matter what’s happened or is yet to happen, you’re my blood.” He patted her hand. “If you ever have a reason to fear this businessman of yours, you come to me. I will always protect you, dove, like your father before me.”

Those words wrapped around her soft and warm, a thick, woolen shawl on the coldest of winter days. They seemed to her the first glimpse of a sheltering cottage after a frostbitten journey through unfamiliar paths. She wasn’t sure if her uncle meant those words, or if she could trust them to be true, but they made her ache fiercely with loneliness and hope. She turned her face away, blinking quickly, then, clutching his hand tightly, rested her brow on his shoulder. “I’ve missed them so.”

He hugged her close, only a rare, fleeting moment before he cleared his throat gruffly, stepping out of her reach as he straightened his medals. “None of that, now. You’ll stain my dashing, red coat.”

Grace smoothed her hand across the skirt of her dress, to regain her composure without having to look at him. Tutting, she turned a hard stare up to him, but there was a playful light in her eyes to soften her rebuke. “I begged you not to wear it.”

“It was insulting to have been asked.”

She pulled him along towards the foyer, where it became progressively cooler as they approached the large entryway, leaving the warmth of the house behind.  
From the edge of a discreet door, a footman appeared, his black livery disentangling itself from the shadows, giving shape and form to the man within it. He followed behind them, holding up her veil so that it wouldn’t snag on the gravel drive.

“Did the others wear their uniforms?”

“Naturally.”

He caught her sidelong glance. “Don’t look at me like that, child. No amount of restraint or niceties is going to make us friends with those Shelby’s. Nor would we want it. Quite the group of ruffians you’ve chosen.”

“Uncle Connor—”

“So many good, Irish men at home hoping to marry into the Burgess family. Or another American. A Protestant, at least.” He gave a long sigh, shaking his head. “And Charles, what will that boy say when it comes time to inherit? When it all comes out.”

She didn’t reply, having no way of defending herself. Instead, she took in the grey, colorless sky, feeling the freezing chill of late autumn raise goosebumps over her skin, biting down deep into her bones.

In the distance, beyond the sundial statue in the middle of the drive, were the naked branches of the sugar maples and the exposed framework of the deciduous hedges. Their barren bodies gave Arrow House a ghoulish appearance. The original owner, a lord with enormous debt, neglected the land leading up to the house, sinking whatever was left of his fortune into the upkeep of the sprawling gardens behind it. Their long, neat gravel paths, lined by trim, evergreen shrubs, shone even in the depths of autumn.

Grace spent long hours lost on those paths. There were mazes designed by a Viscount in the 17th century, which predated the current house; interminable rows of towering green giants; dwarf orange trees planted in porcelain pots, placed between trellises of night jasmine, whose perfume traveled on the breeze; lines of enormous boxwoods shaped into cylinders that rose five meters into the air; formal Italian herbaries with weathered, Greek goddesses at their heart; walled kitchen gardens, where apricots, grapes, and peaches grew from espaliered trees; long tunnels of flowering wisteria bookended by wrought iron gates; enormous, square ponds with topiaries at each corner and marble Venuses rising from the water; fountains bedecked by copper, lotus statues as wide as carriage wheels; walls of climbing roses, which erupted into fat, white blooms whose petals were scattered over her bathwater; tennis courts in clay or grass, put in by the young, wastrel Lord; and a clock tower in the Tudor style built in 1470, towering over a cruck barn which once served as the stables, but now housed Tommy’s collection of cars and carriages.

One warm, Spring day, when Charlie was only three months old and light as a feather in her arms, she’d gotten lost in that landscaped warren. She meant to take him on a short walk, to help distract them both from a fit of endless crying that stretched on from the dark, early hours of the morning to the bright, hot light of day. Her eyes were bloodshot and glassy, her ears ringing with the sound of his hiccupping cries. The world seemed underwater, as if her mind and all its senses were wrapped in cotton. The left turn outside the maze became a right. It didn’t seem to matter much at the time. She continued walking, bouncing Charlie lightly against her chest, “shhing” him softly, cooing Irish ballads she’d sung to his father in The Garrison, all the meanwhile praying he would settle.

When, at last, his crying abated, she sighed from the depths of her soul, standing stock still, surrounded by sweetly-smelling flowers, feeling his weight in her arms, his warmth through her georgette blouse. Listening to the sound of sparrows warbling in the hedges, their wings fluttering as they darted about, her tired eyes fell closed. Leaves rustled on their branches, stirred by a lazy breeze which ran its fingers across her skin and caught the edges of her skirt, tugging at it playfully. She lifted her face to the sun, soaking it in, and took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the perfumed air.

With Charlie finally asleep, and some semblance of peace returning, Grace continued to walk, strolling at a leisurely pace from garden to garden.  
There were no groundskeepers to greet her, as it was Sunday. They were tucked away in their cottages and their tools stored in red-bricked sheds, waiting to be taken out again the following day. This she found suited her, she wanted solitude and silence.

Eventually, she turned to make her way back to the house. Charlie, light as he was at such an early age, was growing heavy in her arms. She paused by a pond with a tiered fountain. The water fell over its marble steppes in a gentle descent—an easy, trickling sound. There was a willow to provide pleasant shade, and her arms were so tired, she cared little for grass stains against the peach silk of her skirt. She lay on her back, setting the still-sleeping Charlie on her chest, and almost at once, fell asleep herself—the sound of the water and the leaves like a shot of morphine into a vein.

Charlie woke her, rooting against her chest, making soft, mewling sounds that would soon turn to earsplitting wails. Her hand was resting against his back when she startled awake, and she pressed him into herself as she sat. The sun had shifted several paces in the sky. The baby began to cry in earnest. It must have been four or five hours since his last feeding. She rocked him side-to-side on her upraised knees as she undid the buttons on her blouse and untied the ribbon of her brassiere. He latched on almost immediately, his fingers curling and uncurling, his cheeks hollowing out as he suckled furiously. Grace had little milk left—she’d begun to use the bottle. He unlatched, beginning to cry again.

“Shh, love,” she cooed, “hush, _my treasure_.” She sat against the willow tree, leaning her back into the rough bark, settling in for a long struggle.

It seemed to take forever, a painful battle with her inconsolable child and her body, but she succeeded. Charlie finished his meal and dozed, milk-drunk, against her breast. She tidied up her blouse, then rose, using the tree to help her stand.

She’d gotten so turned around, blisters began to form on her feet, appearing in those tender places where paper-thin skin, protected only by silk stockings, rubbed against hard, cowhide leather. Charlie’s weight seemed to her as solid as a blacksmith’s anvil, her arms shook from carrying him. The inside of her mouth was dry and cottony. She was incredibly thirsty. The warm sun, so pleasant earlier in the day, sucked the moisture from her skin, raising beads of sweat on her brow. Her bobbed hair clung to her neck. Grace sat on a mossy, stone bench, laying Charlie down beside her over the excess folds of her skirt, carefully penning him in between her hip and her arm. She laughed aloud, covering her face with one hand, driven desperate by her meandering path and yet recognizing the absurdity of it.

She did find Arrow House again, near five in the afternoon, walking in through the French doors of the sunroom. The first person to greet her was Mr. O'Brien’s eight-year-old son, Oisín, a stable boy with flaxen hair and a propensity for mischief. He began wearing a flat cap and waistcoat after meeting Tommy, who he thought hung the moon.

“Hello, Oisín.”

He froze when he saw her, turning to the doorway, then pivoting back around to face her, upon which he doffed his cap, gave her a quick “Hello, Mrs. Macmillan,” before immediately running into the hall, from which he yelled with incredible strength: “She’s here!”

His scream rang up into the carved wooden ceiling, flying into the rest of the house. Charlie’s head bobbed against her shoulder, turning to see the source of the startling commotion with wide, blue eyes.

Grace stood curiously waiting to see what the boy’s announcement would herald. The silence of the house was broken by the distant echo of voices carrying up the call, and hard steps upon the wood floors, growing nearer.

Thomas came into the room, pushing open the large, double oak doors. He stood in his dress shirt, collarless, with golden arm garters pulling up the sleeves; his hair was disheveled, and the veins in his hard eyes were like a red, gossamer veil. He swept his gaze over her and the baby, taking them in from head to toe.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, of course not.”

He exhaled, turning his face up towards the ceiling, where he closed his eyes for a moment. She could see his chest expand as he took in a deep breath.

His voice, when he spoke, remained quiet, but there was no mistaking the fierceness in it. “Where the fuck have you been?”

Oisín ran out of the room, slamming the doors behind him and shutting out the curious gazes of several servants who had wavered in the hall, most of which were men armed with long rifles.

Raising one brow at his question, she sat heavily upon the damask couch, gratefully setting Charlie down into its soft cushions. “Why are there armed men in the hall?”

“There are armed men in the hall, Grace, because every abled man within a fucking mile of Arrow House has been looking for you. Where were you?”

Despite her exhaustion, Grace straightened her back, leaning forward on the cushions. “I was lost. There’s a thousand acres of land, Tommy.”

“I’ve spent the better part of the day wondering if you and Charlie were dead.”

Grace stared at him. The silence of the sunroom, usually a sweet, peaceful sound full of warm sunshine, was alive between them with all the weight of a storm, electric and wild.

Tommy went to the tallboy in the corner, pulling it open to serve himself a generous glass of whiskey, which he downed in one. He set both hands against the cabinet, leaning into it, letting his head hang between his shoulders.

“Thomas, is there something I should know?”  
“You were missing for hours.”

“I fell asleep; I had to feed Charlie and I had a hard time finding my way.”

He served himself another drink, swallowed half of it, lit a cigarette. Every motion he performed with deliberate slowness, taking his time to stopper the crystal decanter, setting it nearly noiselessly over the mirrored tray within the tallboy, the gentle _clicks_ of glass on glass, the lid of the lighter, the flame erupting from the flint, the scent of the cigarette. All this, with his back to her.

“In the future,” he said in that even voice of his which indicated a rip tide was stirring beneath seemingly still waters, “you will take one of my men with you—”

“Tommy, I got lost in the gardens. It would be ridiculous to—”

“A bodyguard will also be arranged for other outings.”

“Thomas—”

“Grace,” he finally turned to face her, his eyes cutting into her. “I thought you were dead.”

“How could I have known you would think that? How can I know when you hardly tell me anything?”

He remained silent, walking with drink in hand to Charlie, gently stroking his downy head.

“I know I betrayed your trust,” she said quietly, watching him with Charlie. “I know I jeopardized everything you’d worked so hard for and that’s no easy thing to forgive. But I can’t bear the burden of that betrayal for the rest of our lives.”

He wouldn’t look at her, still staring at the baby instead.

“Tommy, I need to know the things that are happening to us.”

“We’ve had threats.”

“What threats?”

“It doesn’t matter."

"Of course it matters!"

"I have enemies, Grace. By extension, so do you.”

She placed a cushion before Charlie, to prevent him from rolling onto the floor, then stood from the couch. Folding her arms across her chest, she stared out the French doors onto the lawn. “And when will you stop collecting enemies? When will you toss that gun into The Cut, like you promised me?”

“This is who I am. You’ve known it from the moment you met me. You knew quite a bit about it, in fact.”

“Yes, I did. Just as I knew you had ambitions, Thomas, to put that all behind you.” She ran her hands over her face, then looked around the sunroom of Arrow House, with its mahogany paneled walls, its glass chandeliers, its coffered ceilings, its gilded frames. She pictured the vault in Small Heath, rows and rows of metal shelves stacked with notes. She thought of the thoroughbreds in the stables, the fast, gleaming cars in the carriage house. “Isn’t this enough, Thomas? Can’t this,” she waved her hand to indicate the room, them, and Charlie, who stared attentively from his bed on the couch, “be enough?”

“It is enough.”

“When will that be true, Thomas?”

“Grace—”

“Look around you. Look at what you’ve built,” she stepped close to where he sat on the arm of the couch, standing before him. She took his hands, brought them up, and clutched them in the space between them. “You’ve made it, Tommy.”

He stared first at her, then down at their hands, stroking her skin with his thumb. But he remained quiet.  
In his eyes, she could read his answer.

Like the addicts who gambled their wages away at his races, his ambition was an addiction he could not cure himself of. She feared, even as she was hours away from marrying him, that it would make her a widow.

“Come along, Grace,” her uncle said, “we’re running behind.”

They reached the coach just outside the door. It was a highly polished, black phaeton, with two oil lanterns rimmed in brass and large carriage wheels edged by a fine line of gilded gold. Thomas had found it in the old carriage house, years ago, forgotten under an oiled tarp, precariously favoring its right, rear wheel, the left having rotted away on its axis. Only months ago, a local craftsman, overjoyed at the opportunity for work in an increasingly destitute field, resprung the carriage, stripped the opaque, peeling paint, applied a fresh coat with new varnish, and painstakingly gilded a thin circlet within each wheel. Thomas took it for a drive the minute it was finished, stealing Charlie away from the nursery and her from her study, tucking them into the newly upholstered bench, with its black, tufted wool.

They spent two rare, sunny hours jostling about the winding paths, following Arrow River, stopping to show Charlie rabbits running from their warrens, newly bloomed flowers, or flighty robins in their boughs.

“We’ll make a gypsy of you, my boy.” Thomas had said around a cigarette, tossing up Charlie in his arms, eliciting riotous squeals from him and nervous glances from her—though she knew Thomas would never drop him.

“What do you think?” He’d turned to her, setting Charlie on his knee, “Will it do?”

“The carriage?”

“Yes, for a grand entrance.”

“Oh? Was this all just for me, then?”

“Who else, Grace?”

“You fancy your toys, Thomas, and you know the Sunbeam would have suited me just as well,” but she leaned in to peck his cheek quickly, then Charlie’s, before stealing the reins from his gloved hand with a secret, little smile. “But it’s beautiful,” she said, giving the horse a flick, “and fast,” she finished on a laugh, pushed back against the seat as the horse took off.

Today, there would be no easy ride along the river, nor would they speed through country lanes at their leisure.

At the head of the carriage stood the same horse from that pleasant spring day. She was a chestnut mare, with a white blaze and one sock on her left foreleg, for which she’d been named. Solitaire stepped from hoof to hoof, tossing her head. Poor thing had been waiting too long. A stableman took hold of the bridle, holding her steady.

Uncle Connor helped Grace maneuver the running board, gripping her arm while she balanced upon one white, satin heel, grabbing her skirt precariously with the hand holding her bouquet. Once she’d managed to fall somewhat gracefully into the bench, the footman handed her the rest of her veil and a purple muff. She set the veil and bouquet gently at her side before arranging her skirt. When her uncle flicked the reins of the horse with a firm “Trot on,” she pulled the blanket over them both, tucking her hands into the muff to bring the blood back into her fingers.

She looked out over the dull countryside, watching it pass by in faded greens and muddy browns.

After a long silence, her uncle spoke again. “The man you’re marrying, the way this whole business has gone about, it’s a stain on us.”

Her gaze turned from the land to the bouquet at her side. The calla lily had been used to represent purity for centuries. But it was also the flower most closely associated with the Virgin Mary, a woman whose pregnancy brought her scrutiny and shame, but also great joy. The tiny heliotrope blooms symbolized eternal love, because, as their name suggested, they followed the direction of the sun, like a lover always seeking their beloved. The sweet pea was for good fortune, of which she would need a great deal of in this marriage.

“Do you know why I chose lily-of-the-valley for my bouquet?”

“It seems you’re keen on telling me.”

“They represent a return to happiness. Each time I have met Thomas, I have regained the happiness I had lost.”

“Weren’t you happy with Clive, Grace?”

“I was content.” And she had been, in the cynical way one adapts when it seems there’s nothing more to discover, when life feels redundant and passionless. “But I want to be happy, uncle. Do not begrudge me that.”

He gave a long sigh, shaking his head. “You have made a mess of things, child. I do resent it, but you’ll remember what I said?”

“Which part?” she asked. “The part where I’ve ruined my reputation and dishonored the family or the other bit?”

“Don’t be smart. You made your choices, Grace.”

“And I don’t regret them. My only regret is Clive.”

“The less said of him the better.”

Grace didn’t think she would ever be able to set aside his specter. That was a cankerous sore that would fester, deep within a dark corner of her heart, for as long as she lived. The things his mother had spat at her in New York were pressed between the folds of her brain, the memory etched into the soft tissue like words chiseled into marble. They would weather, with time, but their mark would always linger.

“Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

Her uncle’s words matched the strangeness of her mood. A life with Thomas would always split her into two pieces, one half of her soaring high through cloudless skies, the other mired in deep snow banks, trudging forward through a fierce storm. These parts of her soul struggled to fit within a single body, her frame too small to hold them both at once. Some days she felt as if one mood pushed the other down into her toes, and that was the Grace who presented herself to the world. Today, she had been in that white, bitter storm for hours. Now, as they drove over the gravel path leading into the parish church, she felt herself float above those snowy banks, rising high into the air like a bird taking flight. Inside that church, at the end of the aisle, standing before a gilded altar, waited Tommy—and Charlie waited for them both in the nursery.

She held her uncle’s hand as he helped her alight from the carriage, letting him drape the blusher over her face, but even its dark, oppressive lace, which had so frightened her earlier, could not tear her from the sky.

* * *

Author’s Notes:

The good news is: this story is completed! I have ten chapters in the final editing phases and will be posting one per week.

There may be some words or phrases that were meant to be italicized, but due to the website's text formatting, may have been lost. 

Historical Notes:  
_Any historical notes below are cobbled together using copy and paste, with editing for brevity and clarity._

\- It’s difficult to imagine how the show writers would have depicted society’s view of Grace, a married woman, living with her lover and their child. How much would the servants know? Family members? Society at large? Did they lie and pretend Grace was unwed, or perhaps already a widow? And how long was Grace actually a widow before they married? Did she use her maiden name or her married name during those two years? The only clue provided was during the vows, when the priest calls her “Grace Helen Burgess.” But was this a clue or simply a trait of an Anglican service (or a Catholic or Protestant one)? I have no idea.  
We tend to believe that an unwed couple, especially one with a child, would be outrageously scandalous and rare for the period, but apparently, it wasn’t quite that rare. There are several accounts of couples cohabiting and having children outside of wedlock, but it did remain a delicate subject.  
Likewise difficult to understand (at least without a local understanding of British laws and history) was how Charlie’s legitimacy would be handled. At the time, England had some of the toughest inheritance laws in Europe. No child born out of wedlock could inherit, not even if their parents married thereafter. It wasn’t until 1926 that children born out of wedlock could be legitimatized by the marriage of their parents, but only if the child was conceived when both parents were free to marry, which means Charlie was still out of luck. Eventually, I found a source which suggested it was possible for illegitimate children to inherit if their father left a crystal clear, legal will with no room for contest. This is how I imagine Thomas would have handled Charlie’s inheritance in the show.  
Since those two years of cohabitation aren’t shown, I’ve chosen to have the servants in Arrow House address Grace by her married name. Perhaps Thomas would have cultivated the idea that Grace was already a widow when they got together. With her husband in New York, the local community wouldn’t have an easy way of knowing the truth from the lie. Only people who knew her in connection to her husband might know otherwise.

\- The Plaza Hotel has been around since the 1800s. It was completely rebuilt in the early 1900s, which means it would have been a modern structure in the early 1920s. This was also the time when new construction began to add a three-hundred room annex and when The Great Gatsby dropped a mention of the hotel. All in all, it was swanky, hip place.

\- _Daid_ is Irish for “dad.” Grace would likely speak Irish, as Galway is a Gaeltacht district, even today. Gaeltacht is an Irish-language word for any primarily Irish-speaking region. It refers individually to any, or collectively to all, of the districts where the government recognizes that the Irish language is the predominant vernacular, or language of the home. The 2011 census reports that 42% of the residents of Galway City speak Irish and 20% speak Gaelic in the home. In important ways Galway City is the capital of the Gaeltacht. Galway is the home of the National Irish Language Theater and the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge) has a presence in the city.  
I did have a hard time finding information on whether an Irish Protestant household in the 1920s, made up of pro-British military officers, would teach Irish as a child’s first language, or their second, or if they might not teach it at all. Given the very high percentage of Irish-speaking locals in Galway in the 1920’s, I’ve chosen to make Grace fluent. If anyone can point to good references indicating the politics of language at the time, I’d love to read about it.

-So, what’s the difference between Irish and Gaelic? Specifically, Gaelic is an adjective that describes the people and culture of Ireland. The Irish language is sometimes referred to as “Gaeilge” (pronounced Gwal-gah), but it is not Gaelic; Gaelige is the name of the Irish language in Irish. Like its Gaelic cousin, both are Indo-European languages, but Irish is a language unto its own. The term “Gaelic”, as a language, applies only to the language of Scotland. If you’re not in Ireland, it is permissible to refer to the language as Irish Gaelic to differentiate it from Scottish Gaelic, but when you’re in the Emerald Isle, simply refer to the language as either Irish or its native name, Gaeilge.  
But, wait, there’s more! As if the above isn’t mind-bending enough, Irish has three dialects:  
Ulster Dialect—Spoken in the northwest corner of the country;  
Connacht Dialect—Spoken in the west of the country; the two most prominent areas are Connemara and Mayo (Galway is hereabouts);  
And Munster Dialect—Spoken in the southwest of Ireland.

\- Some people speculate that Grace wore a lilac wedding dress because it’s a half-mourning color, and she was still in the mourning period after her husband’s death. This seems dubious to me, as I doubt Tommy would allow his wife to marry him in mourning colors. I believe a likelier explanation is the simplest: Grace had already been married before and she was a mother, wearing white may have been inappropriate by the standards of the time.

\- In the first few episodes of Season 3, Grace addresses a maid she calls “Mary.” The maid says something that seems rather conversational and familiar to her (she scolds her for reading in poor light). I’ve chosen to make Mary the head housekeeper who came before Francis. She also doubles as Grace’s occasional lady’s maid (forgive any historical inaccuracies inherent therein).

\- Blonde lace is a continuous bobbin lace from France that is made of silk. The term “blonde” refers to the natural color of the silk thread. Originally this lace was made with the natural-colored silk, and sometimes dyed in black.  
There was a lot of blonde lace made in Spain, mostly in the Catalonia region, and especially in Barcelona. It had all the same qualities as blonde lace made elsewhere, with very large flowers. It was used mainly for mantillas and scarfs and became part of the archetypical image of a Spanish lady. Blonde lace made in Spain is called Spanish blonde lace. Because I’m unfamiliar with most laces or their patterns, I tried to find something to adequately describe the heavy lace blusher Grace wore and this seemed to fit the bill.

\- A kirby grip is the same as a bobby pin (though some would argue this). Its name is derived from the trademark Kirbigrip, used by a Birmingham manufacturer of such pins, Kirby, Beard & Co. Ltd. I was doubly pleased to include a product manufactured in Birmingham into Grace’s getting-ready scene.

\- I switch occasionally between the metric system and the imperial. Originally, I wanted to stick to the metric system as a nod to the story’s geographical setting, but that was a mistake, as the imperial system is British and was used in the UK until the 1960s. Let’s pretend all units of measurement are as they should be until I’ve had a chance to go back and adjust them.

\- The Marriage of Queen Victoria, by Sir George Hayter (1792-1871), was begun on the day of her marriage, February 10, 1840 and completed in 1842. It is oil on canvas and measures 195.8 x 273.5 cm. Currently part of the Royal Collection Trust. Did it appear in Dublin during the early 1900s? I’ve no idea, as that was entirely made up.

\- The 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards was a cavalry regiment in the British Army. It was renamed as the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards in 1788 and service for two centuries, including the First World War, before being amalgamated with 7th Dragoon Guards (Princess Royal's), to form the 4th/7th Dragoon Guards in 1922.

\- An aiguillette, also spelled aguillette, aiglet or aglet, is a cord with metal tips or lace tags, or the decorative tip itself.

\- Connor is short for Cornelius.

\- I may have made Grace’s uncle a tad too soft in this. I do apologize for writing him out-of-character, but, in my defense, he only has one line in the entire show.

\- Arrow House is meant to be between Birmingham and Warwick, on the River Arrow (thus the name).  
It’s about a 42 minute drive from Small Heath to Warwick and the River Arrow today. Given the state of the roads in the 1920’s and a sustained speed of around 30 mph (which was really fast for the break systems and road conditions then), the trip would probably take about an hour to an hour and a half.

\- The manor used to represent Arrow House is Arley House in Cheshire. The front of the house, which features an Atlas-like figure bearing a sundial upon his back, is actually quite nice compared to the somewhat haunted appearance it’s given in the show. But nicer still are the enormous gardens around it (even in the dead of winter); they’re famous and are counted among the top ten gardens in Europe. There is an herb garden, a kitchen garden with espaliered trees, statues, ponds, fountains, at least one tennis court, enormous boxwoods, green giants, long gravel paths, cottages, etc. It really is a maze. There are also tons of sundials (guess one of the owners was a busy man). The house is the home of Viscount Ashbrook and is Grade II listed and open to the public. The cuck barn with the clock tower is Grade I, having been built circa 1470. There’s also a large, private chapel (as large as most churches) and loads of picturesque acreage. The description in this chapter of the gardens is inspired by the real thing, but heavily sprinkled with fiction, so take it with a (large) grain of salt.

\- The italicized use of “my treasure” in the scene when Grace is lost in the gardens with Charlie is supposed to signal her use of Irish. The Irish term used there could be A Stór, which is a term of endearment similar to “my darling,” but literally meaning “treasure.” Its anglicised form asthore appears in English-language literature, poetry, and song. Sometimes it appears as m’asthore, a mixed-tongue contraction of mo stór, “my treasure.” A thousand apologies to any Irish speakers who might cringe at the use of this (or of daid). Please drop a comment with any suggestions or corrections.

\- The popularity of breastfeeding has waxed and waned throughout history. Before the 19th century, it was fairly unpopular for wealthy mothers to breastfeed. For various reasons, it was the fashion for the upper crust to employ a nursemaid. This trend began to change in the 1800’s, when doctors began to urge mothers to nurse their own children. Society followed suit, building up the image of breastfeeding as part and parcel of motherhood. Strong efforts by public health commissions were made to popularize breastfeeding, especially in poorer, urban neighborhoods where unsanitary water, hygiene conditions, and unpasteurized cow’s milk could easily lead to an infant’s death. The trend was reversed again in the 1920s, when advancements in public hygiene and standardization of pasteurization made it safer to use formula. Formula, which had been around since the late 1800’s, also saw improvements in the early 1900’s and by the 1920s it was seen as a reasonable alternative. The fashionable thing to do was to bottle-feed or to wean early and then bottle-feed, which is what Grace does with Charlie.

\- It took a bit of digging, but the car Thomas drives in the early episodes of Season 3, and subsequently loses to Tatiana, is a 1924 Sunbeam 20/60 hp Enclosed Limousine. Tatiana’s car was a 1929 Bentley 4½ Litre All-weather saloon by Salmons, considered the height of technology at its time.  
Arthur drives a 1926 Vauxhall 30/98 Peppercorn Tourer, which had a reputation for being sleek and fast.

\- A phaeton (also phaéton) was a form of sporty open carriage popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Drawn by one or two horses, a phaeton typically featured a minimal very lightly sprung body atop four extravagantly large wheels. With open seating, it was both fast and dangerous, giving rise to its name, drawn from the mythical Phaëton, son of Helios, who nearly set the earth on fire while attempting to drive the chariot of the sun.  
With the advent of the automobile, the term was adapted to open touring cars, also known as phaetons.

\- Lily of the valley, sometimes written lily-of-the-valley (as per a British magazine), is a highly poisonous woodland flowering plant with sweetly scented, pendent, bell-shaped white flowers borne in sprays in spring. Other names include May bells, Our Lady's tears, and Mary's tears. Its French name, muguet, sometimes appears in the names of perfumes imitating the flower's scent. In pre-modern England, the plant was known as glovewort (as it was a wort used to create a salve for sore hands), or Apollinaris (according to a legend that it was discovered by Apollo).  
In the "language of flowers", the lily of the valley signifies the return of happiness. It was used in the bridal bouquets of Kate Middleton and Grace Kelly.


	5. I Want to Remember You

I Want to Remember You

1924

Across the flat, open land of Warwick, the damp wind tugged at the bare branches of the passing trees. Their naked limbs shook in the biting breeze, brittle wooden fingers scratching against the oppressive sky. Within a few weeks' time, winter would blow its icy breath over the still-soft soil. Grass, already gray and sickly in the throes of autumn, would wither beneath a frozen blanket. The muddy land would bloom with frost and a moon-white cape of snow would cover the world for brief moments of perfect beauty.

Grace imagined that first full snowfall, glimpsed through enormous windows, from the comfort of Arrow House, with a fire crackling in the stone hearth.

Driving the two miles from the church in the phaeton had seemed feasible from the shelter of her study, tucked behind thick, stone walls and warmed by faithful radiators, which were kept in order through means of an automatic stoker in the basement, constantly feeding the furnace.

"We need to order more coal," she said aloud.

"Already done—Mary set the accounts on my desk last week. You must be freezing to bring that up now."

Grace wrapped the fine wool of his overcoat more tightly around herself. Its heavy weight kept the warmth trapped within it, but the thieving wind snuck through the smallest of crevices, winding about her prickled skin.

"We're almost home," Thomas said, watching the road while he absently tucked the blanket more firmly around her hip.

She sunk into herself beneath the coat, clutching her hands within the fur muff over her lap. He draped an arm over her shoulder with a whispered "Come here."

Her nose hid beneath the velvet collar. Every breath brought her little traces of his scent, which she began to categorize: eucalyptus from his shaving soap, peppery nicotine from his cigarettes; and a nearly imperceptible combination of bergamot, orange, and cedarwood from the Italian cologne she'd purchased on Savile Row—which he'd received with skeptical disdain.

Those aromas tied her to different rooms within Arrow House, and to different hours within their day.

At dawn, when the sun stretched over the horizon, she could picture him at the shaving stand in their bathroom, in his pleated, cotton underwear, fresh from bed—vulnerable—soft as few would ever see him.

In a small, silver dish, he would create a rich lather from a round wafer of Proraso's shaving soap. On some mornings, when they had no urgent errands, she would step up to him, to take the brush and bowl from his hands and to apply the shaving cream slowly over his face. The aromatic eucalyptus oils in the soap would perfume the air between them. Sometimes she would set about her task practically, taking up the tortoiseshell handle of his silver razor and running it in smooth motions over the taut skin of his jaw or neck. In those quiet moments, the soothing sound of the razor head swirling through a porcelain bowl of fresh water was like a balm to her soul. Other times, she would dab cream on his nose and fruitlessly wrestle him for control of the brush, both of them slipping over the tiled floor, their skin streaked with dollops of the lathered soap.

On most evenings, after long hours of paperwork or errands or business, they would return to their room to dress for dinner, the sunlight through the window a pale specter clinging to the newborn body of a twilight sky.

Thomas would emerge from a hot bath, slick and new, the steam from the water escaping through the open door into their bedroom, carrying up the traces of clean, fresh soap into the corners of the tall ceiling. After dressing, he would dab the smallest amount of cologne onto his jacket.

And always, the biting smell of his cigarettes, at all hours and in all corners of their lives. She didn't know anyone who smoked as voraciously as he did, or as handsomely.

He was smoking now, as he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, mouth turning up into a smirk around his cigarette. "Are you smelling my coat?"

She untucked one hand from the purple muff to hold up the peaked lapel to her nose. "You're wearing the Acqua di Parma."

"I've no idea what that is."

"You do, but I won't tell Arthur or John."

"Arthur would wear frankincense if Linda asked. But John would drive me round the bend."

"And Finn would tell Isiah, who would tell Johnny Dogs, who would tell the Lee's. And then every gypsy and gangster in Birmingham would know the stoic Thomas Shelby wears cologne."

"On special occasions."

Grace tucked her arm through his, leaning against him to steal away the warmth of his body. "Is today a special occasion?"

As if he were in no hurry, Thomas took the cigarette from his mouth, rolled it in his fingers, tossed it over the side of the phaeton. He placed both reins into one hand and with his other caught up the back of her neck, through which he pulled her into a hard kiss. The firm press of his lips, his fingers clutching her hair, the feel of him against her breast, like fire through her veins. The grey, cloudy sky, the whistling wind, the cold in her bones—it all faded beneath a rising fire deep in her belly. A soft breath escaped her when he pulled away to glance briefly at the road. Her eyes remained closed, face upturned, lips slightly parted.

"That's how I wanted to kiss you."

She opened her eyes to meet his stare. "In the church?"

"Before God, the Virgin, and all witnesses, real or imagined."

"Shocking, Mr. Shelby."

"Oh, I aim to do shocking things to you, today."

Blood rose to her cheeks and she turned her face into his shoulder, where she felt the breath in his chest rattle with a single, quiet laugh. Thomas relished any opportunity to break her usual stoicism.

As did she, thought Grace, resting her palm high on his thigh, letting her fingers brush in-between his legs, where she touched him without warning.

All at once, his right hand jerked back, pulling the reins too roughly, the horse gave an angry huff, dancing back a step, the phaeton jolted into a stop that threw them both slightly forward, and his spine shot up into perfect straightness. Her hand was already on his knee when he threw out his left hand to catch it and keep it from further mischief. She could feel the muscles in his thigh jump in tense expectation. Thomas tossed her a hot look, then cleared his throat as he resettled into the bench. He straightened his suit's jacket and gave Solitaire her lead.

Grace kept her eyes firmly upon the road, tilting her chin up. "I can do shocking things, too, Mr. Shelby."

"Foul play, Grace."

"No such thing in love and war." Her smile, which had been narrowly kept to a tight line by force of will, finally curled up into the apple of her cheeks when she caught sight of his red-tipped ears and flushed neck.

"What will the servants think?" He said as they entered the drive, circling round the dormant roses with their sundial statue—the weathered figure of Atlas bearing the burden of time.

"Nothing they would ever say to us."

The enormous entryway they drove up to featured ionic columns carved in high relief from a stone façade, with heraldic crests at the spandrels, above which sat another coat of arms, surrounded by intricate knot work. Before this stood the servants, lined up into two rows on either side of the stone arch, waiting to greet them for the first time as husband and wife.

When the carriage rolled to a stop, two footmen wearing immaculate black livery came forward to help them. Thomas passed the reins to the first, then stepped down from the phaeton, turning to offer her his hand.

She placed her frigid fingers into his warm palm, kept so by black leather gloves. His long, Chesterfield coat dragged behind her as she alighted. The footman nearest took up her veil, which she'd forgotten to wrap around her arm, handing it to her. Thomas draped it twice over her shoulders, to keep the delicate lace from the grasping teeth of the gravel. Along with the coat, it made her appear like a child having stolen into her parents' wardrobe. She could tell he thought her a ridiculous sight by the sparkling mischief in his eye.

Mary, along with George Williamson, the head butler, approached them. Both extended their congratulations.

"Welcome home, Mrs. Shelby." Mary said, standing straight in her neatly pressed uniform, hands clasped before her, wearing a warm smile.

"Thank you, Mary. You are the first person today to call me that." Having placed extra emphasis on "first," she glanced at Thomas with an upraised brow.

"I'll have to dock your pay for spoiling my moment." Thomas said to Mary as he lit a fresh cigarette.

"My apologies Mr. Shelby. Shall I unsay it until you've had the opportunity?"

"Post haste."

"Consider it unsaid." She gave a little bow to which Thomas tipped his cap.

"Where's Charlie?" She asked Mary, tugging the coat closer around her.

"He's been fussy without you. I managed to get him to nap an hour ago."

"When you wake him, bring him down."

Williamson looked at Thomas as if he'd requested Charlie be flambéed before the wedding party. To a man who began service in 1876, she supposed a toddler mixing with the Waterford crystal was like a madman set lose among a munitions factory.

Mary didn't blink twice, well-used to Tommy's unconventional requests. "Of course, Mr. Shelby."

"Before dinner?" Williamson interjected.

"He's one-and-a-half. Any later than dinner and he'll fall into the soup."

Grace mediated. "Bring him down after we receive the guests. That will give us time with him before we sit at the table."

Thomas tossed his cigarette into the gravel, looking out over the road leading into Arrow House. Their guests must have left the church by now. "Come on, before we're invaded."

Mary and Williams bowed as he took Grace by the hand, leading her up the steps into the recessed porch, where he pulled her through the large, arched double-doors, throwing over his shoulder one final statement "We'll be out in a minute, Williamson."

In the foyer, it was quiet and dark. None of the warmth of the radiators reached them this close to the entryway. A draft blew in behind her, whispering through the hall before the door shut it out. Up ahead, she could see the landing of the staircase, over which hung their portrait in the pale glow of electric lights. There wasn't a sound to be heard, not a single servant underfoot. Any moment, their guests would arrive, a caravan of cars to line up in the gravel drive. Their owners would expect them to stand in the grand entryway, ready to receive them.

"We really don't have time to sneak away."

"A husband and wife have certain rights on their own wedding day."

"We can't be absent when the guests arrive. It would be terribly rude."

Thomas turned to face her. "This is as far as we'll go. I just wanted you inside the house."

He untangled her veil and removed the overcoat from her shoulders, throwing it carelessly into a chair at his back. "I hadn't wanted to say it until we were here."

His hands rubbed against the thin sleeves of her dress, warming her arms and shoulders. "It's been two years of waiting; I wanted it to be right."

Grabbing his hands, she removed his gloves slowly, pinching the fingertips one at a time before peeling away the leather.

"I'm tired of pretending not to hear when people call Charlie a bastard. And I'm getting too old to defend your honor with razor blades."

The teasing light in his eyes brought a smile over her face. "My honor? You didn't used to care about things like that."

"I was a long way from parliament then."

"You're still a ways from parliament. I should talk to my cousin about it. He's a solicitor, very academic, he can suggest—"

"Grace."

"Yes?"

"I don't want to talk about your cousin."

"No? What should we talk about?"

"Goals, Grace. We were talking about goals."

"Which ones?"

"Just the one: the goal, right this minute," he took her hand in his, pulling her close by the small of her back, "Is to hold my wife before the cavalry arrives."

"Are we dancing?"

His eyebrow ticked up, "Aren't we?"

"There's no music," she said, already following his slow lead.

"We've never needed music."

"You're awfully romantic, today."

"Special occasion."

They swayed in the silence, her temple pressed into his chest, his jaw resting against the crown of her head, the sound of his heart steady and deep against her ear. The dark, cool foyer wrapped them in shadows that kept out the harsh, bright world.

He leaned closer, dropping his next words into her ear. "Welcome home, Mrs. Shelby."

"Is that what this was all about?"

"I've waited five years to say that."

She felt as if he'd slipped his hand in-between her ribs, straight through the flesh and cartilage, to wrap his fist around her beating heart—a painful ache and yet sweet all the same.

"Tommy—"

"Don't say anything. I didn't mean it that way."

He did mean it exactly as he'd said it. But she understood, for she too wished it had been so. All those years ago, that day when Kimber came knocking, just before, when Thomas had been smiling and high, building visions of their future, and her, tight-lipped, each of his promises a sword lancing through her. If only we could act in the present with the knowledge of the future, or at the very least, its wisdom, how much suffering might we avoid? To turn back the hands of the clock, to stand within one's body, older yet younger.

Thomas sensed her spiraling thoughts, or so it seemed, for he kissed her cheek, whispering against the soft, velvety skin. "It was worth it, Grace."

She tucked herself closer to him, hiding her face. His voice traveled through her when he next spoke, still softly, but lighter.

"It might be hours before we're alone again."

Clearing her throat, she strove to distract them. "By then, you likely won't look as dapper as you do now." She drew back a little, holding onto his hands as she said, "Let me look at my husband."

He wore a three-piece woolen suit, in a deep navy that appeared nearly black in the dim light. The trousers were double-forward pleated and the jacket was single-breasted, with peak lapels rising from a short gorge. He looked trim and stylish—the lines of the suit closely followed the strong, lithe lines of his body.

"Haven't you looked at me enough, already?"

"I want to remember you in your wedding suit."

"It looks more like you want me out of it."

"I do," she said, continuing to categorize the details of his attire.

As always, his jacket remained unbuttoned—a useful habit for a man who carried guns. Peaking from the sleeves of the jacket were crisp French cuffs secured by golden links whose faces held a single diamond stone next to the etching of his initials. She'd given him those cuff links for his birthday last year.

"You wore my gifts."

He touched the drop earrings hanging by the line of her jaw. "So did you. Have you finished your study, Mrs. Shelby?"

"Not quite."

He had a linen handkerchief tucked into the welted pocket at his breast, below his boutonnière. This she pulled free, walking around him to unfold it over the surface of a tall pedestal, whose gleaming wooden tabletop held an arrangement of fresh roses in a porcelain vase. He came to stand at her back, observing her actions over the slope of her shoulder.

From a hidden pocket sewn into the folds of her dress, she unearthed three flowers—one heliotrope bloom small enough to fit on the pad of her index finger, a stem of lily-of-the-valley holding three tiny bells, no longer than her thumb, and finally, the smallest bud of a blossomed sweet pea. They were slightly crushed from their journey, and already wilting, but she arranged them gently upon their linen canvas, folding the handkerchief into the required shape. She turned, tucking it into the pocket from which she'd pulled it. He watched her all the while.

"What's this for?" he asked, tapping the handkerchief.

"A number of things."

"No particulars?"

"You're a clever man. I'm sure you'll figure it out." Grace said no more on the subject. Instead, she took the newsboy cap from his head and set it over his discarded coat. Thomas drank her in as she came closer.

She laid a kiss into his palm, then set his hand against her jaw. "Won't you touch your wife, Mr. Shelby?"

"You're trying to kill me," he breathed, the fingers of his right hand tangling into her hair, the left clutching her waist through the silk of her dress, digging into her skin.

The soft quiet was cut through by the explosive pitch of a car horn. They heard John's voice yelling outside, "Where's the bastard?"

Thomas dropped his forehead against hers. "Fucking John."

Grace laughed, agreeing with him. "Williamson's blood pressure must have shot into the stratosphere."

"Already there." He laced his fingers with hers, walking them to the oak doors. "Let's get this over with."

"You sound just like my uncle."

The small sitting room off the entrance hall was paneled in elm, with gilded mirrors and pale raw silk curtains descending five-and-a-half meters from the ceiling. These were offset by a contemporary set of armchairs and couches, upholstered in off-white wool with curved armrests made of highly polished rosewood, all set over a plain, cream rug.

Most of her family had commandeered the room as theirs, holding court away from the travelers, business associates, and Birmingham-bred _ruffians_ they so disdained. It was an obvious and snobbish maneuver which forced her to split her time between hosting them in their isolation and hosting the rest of her party.

"I'll say this for the man: he has taste." Her aunt remarked, indicating the room with one hand, the other clutching her third glass of champagne.

"He married a Burgess, didn't he?"

This caused a round of laughter and mild teasing, which she took with a distracted laugh of her own, her eyes darting once again to the doorway, through which she searched the entrance hall for Tommy's blue suit.

"Where is that husband of yours?"

"Business, no doubt," she said absently. Then turned to address the speaker, her cousin, asking him for advice on a good law tutor.

"Write to me about it, or call. I'll forget otherwise, Nell. And I can recommend some excellent books come out recently—classics, too."

"Don't get him started, Grace! He'll talk your ear off. I swear he gets hot thinking about Blackstone."

They both ignored Seamus, who was always doing his best to get a rise out of Sean, ever since they were all young enough to play with sticks.

"I'd appreciate that," Grace told Sean.

"Is it for the foundation?"

"For that and other things. You'll find out about it eventually."

"Freshly married and already keeping secrets?"

"From you nosy lot? Absolutely."

Someone asked her about the wedding guests, drawing her attention away from her cousin.

"I can't say how many are in attendance," she said with a smile, "it seems a number of people are here who weren't invited, but it makes for a lively party, doesn't it?

"Too lively." Her uncle muttered.

She made a great effort not to roll her eyes, and succeeded, likely due to all the times her housekeeper boxed her ears as a child for doing so. "Arrow House has never seen this many people, not even at Christmas. I would love to host this year, if you'll come."

The wife of her eldest cousin, a woman with ice chips in place of eyes, muttered an answer into her champagne coupe which Grace pretended not to hear.

"Not bloody likely."

Her cousin cleared his throat loudly, pitching his voice over his wife's, "We'd be delighted. Wouldn't we Uncle Connor?"

Uncle Connor did not reply.

"How long has it been since we've seen Nell at Christmas?" Someone else spoke to fill in the heavy silence.

"Six years, at least."

"It can't have been that long!"

"Sean had just gotten home from the front; 1918, I can never forget it."

Her father's last Christmas, spent in his boyhood home.

"Don't you remember the good time we had, Grace?"

She did. Uncle Connor's country estate sat at the edge of County Galway and County Tipperary, nestled atop a hill overlooking the River Shannon as it fed into Lough Derg. It was a short drive from Portumna, but hours from Galway. With her uncle's help, Grace purchased the rail tickets to surprise her father for Christmas. They were hard days for him since the loss of his son and the month leading up to the holiday saw him shut in his study or at the Constabulary, dragging a dark cloud wherever he went. They had so many arguments that year. Mean, hard words thrown between them about politics, women, marriage, vengeance, justice.

For Grace, that Christmas was an opportunity to wager a ceasefire—a brief peace removed from the stresses of their everyday lives. She hoped to walk the halls where'd he'd played as a boy, to learn a little more about who he'd been as a young man and she hoped those halls would bring him some measure of comfort.

"It's a shame you had to lease it, Connor."

"The IRA's torn the country apart. May's nerves couldn't take it anymore."

"You're always blaming my nerves, Cornelius, but you were the one worried we had a target painted on our backs."

"Because we did."

"Come now, you two. No arguing on a wedding day," someone interjected, laughing.

"When all this Separatist nonsense is over, you should host another party at Shannon, Connor. Open up the house, relive the glory days."

"Nothing can ever outshine that Christmas. It was sublime."

"Do you remember the caroling and the riding? The hot chocolates served with the butter biscuits, still warm from the kitchens?"

"And the snow! Snow in Portumna!"

"What a grand holiday that was."

It had been grand. In twilight of the Belle Epoch, her uncle had thrown open the doors of Shannon Manor, hosting twenty close friends and relatives for nearly six weeks. Horse riding by the river, decked in velvet coats, ice skating on a rink built for the festivities, sledding down snowy hills on cloudy days, waltzing in a vaulted hall, where liveried musicians played into the night and towering evergreens grew from the corners of each room, dressed in ribbons and strings of electric lights. Or else raucous caroling beside a gilded piano, long evenings by the fire, succulent fruits flambéed in brandy, cups of Hot Toddy with fragrant, curling steam, chocolate tarts stacked a meter high. It had been like a dream, the likes of which is lived and then recalled with wondrous disbelief, as if staring into a room through a crown glass window, watching the distorted figures within glow in the candlelight, a riot of colors as they spun through a waltz, their shadows dancing along the walls.

Christmas Day that year dawned heavy and grey. But the dark clouds hanging low in the sky did nothing to ground their spirits—nor the snow turning to slush under a drizzling rain. The house woke with a clatter of cheerful noises. Children ran through the halls, their feet pounding against the floorboards or over the soft runner, racing from their nursery to invade the peaceful rooms of their parents, or else to raid the kitchens for rare treats. Servants gave loud, pleasant greetings as they ran into each other, the lovers amongst them sneaking kisses beneath mistletoe branches. Boisterous relatives knocked mischievously on the doors of their sleeping neighbors, yelling "Up! Up, you slothful heathens! It's Christmas Day!" To which their reply was a bark of irritation or an appeal to mercy—oftentimes both. "We were up 'till dawn! The Devil take you!"

Tea preceded church, then their Christmas breakfast was served in the French style, the oak table groaning under the weight of silver trays laden with oranges, sautéed potatoes, salted mackerel, chipped beef on toast, blood puddings, soft eggs, buttery scones, roasted tomatoes. This was followed by skating, the ice having been carefully preserved through the morning's rain, covered by tarps. Grace could remember the creamy Edwardian dress she'd worn—its loose chiffon overskirt weighed by beaded patterns of flowers in the art nouveau style—getting torn and dirtied as she'd fallen more than once, taking her father down with her, both of them laughing and wild. The happiest she'd ever seen him.

That evening, her maid came into her room bearing a blue velvet dress from Worth's. All along the front of the gown ran a bold pattern of large, stylized lilies, embroidered in silver thread. This pattern was repeated across the back, where the lilies bloomed down over a sweeping train. The tiny sleeves were off-the-shoulder, the bodice form-fitting, and the skirt generously flared into a princess cut. It was the grandest gown her mother ever owned, and worn only once before her death. In some ways, it was inappropriate for an unmarried woman, and it was dated, conforming to late Victorian standards.

"Who sent this?" She asked the maid.

"Your father, Ms. Burgess."

"Does Mrs. Burgess approve?"

"Yes, ma'am.

"In that case, will you help me try it on? It's been ages since I laced myself into anything like this."

It was a little tight at the waist, her mother having been a wraithlike thing in her last years, but a tighter lacing of her stays solved that. Between them, they applied the hot iron to her long hair, pulling it up into a lose coiffure that sat low on her neck. They added long earrings—white, enameled lilies her father had given her for Christmas. And now she knew why. The dress was already so stunning, they left her neck bare and on her arms, she wore only her long, creamy gloves.

When her father knocked on her door, to escort her to dinner, he stood unmoving at the threshold.

"You look so much like her, my child."

The maid curtsied, leaving them alone.

"Will you tell me about her, when she wore this?"

They sat on the couch before the fireplace, her father staring into the flames and into the past. Between them were two empty spaces that would never be filled.

"I could never afford such a gown, but we'd received a rare invitation to a grand ball. I had every intention of declining, but your uncle bought the dress for your mother, to force my hand. She adored it, and I had no further excuse to refuse her."

"You've stayed close, over the years, with Uncle Connor."

"Mostly through his own efforts, I'll admit. You've heard the stories, of all our misadventures when we were children."

"Only because others tell them. You rarely speak of that time, _Daid_, or of them."

"No reason to live in the past, my girl. You may come to appreciate one day, how painful it is, to view fond memories through the lens of an imperfect present." He patted her hand. "Though I hope you never know such things."

"_Daid_—"

"You wanted to know about the dress, yes?" He said over her, turning to help her stand. "Your mother wore it in 1896. She looked as beautiful as you do now. Men envied me and women envied her gown, which I was told, by more than one vapid creature in that ballroom, was 'Simply the pinnacle of fashion.'" He pitched his voice a little at the end, in imitation of a crone's nasally soprano.

Grace laughed, standing as he did. "It's beautiful, _Daid_. Thank you for bringing it."

"I'm a gruff curmudgeon of a man, Grace, but I do have a bit of sentiment left in me, and enough sense to know the world that dress was made in is fast fading. This is likely the only chance I'll get to see you in it."

"I don't think I could manage it outside of family. I'd be ridiculed."

"Vapid creatures, the lot of them."

"Am I vapid, then, for caring?"

"You have more heart than that, my child. Enough to drive any father mad with worry. All those ideas you have."

She stood, pulling him with her. "Let's not argue."

They walked down to dinner together and together they danced along with cousins and siblings and uncles and aunts, well past midnight.

Those weeks spent at Shannon Hall carried for her a magic she'd never been able to recapture, perhaps, because like her father, that was an age and a world since buried.

"Grace. Grace, darling, your housekeeper is calling you."

She brought herself into the present, looking towards Mary, who stood in the doorway. Grace excused herself, walking out of the room to speak with her on the stairs, nestled behind three raucous guests spilling champagne over the carpet.

"The baby's just woken. Would you like me to bring him down?"

"Yes, that would be lovely." Before she could curtsy, Grace added, "Have you seen Thomas?"

"He's in his study, Mrs. Shelby."

"Thank you, Mary."

Her journey to the study was halted by numerous guests pulling her aside into brief conversations.

_"Grace, have you met my sister?"_

_"Come and verify this rumor about your husband, Mrs. Shelby!"_

_"Darling do tell me about your dress. Is it Lanvin or Vionnet?"_

_"Mrs. Shelby, when will the foundation be ready?"_

_"Grace, love, Linda was just telling me—"_

To avoid further interruption, she chartered a course close to the paneled walls and breathed a sigh of relief when the door to the study finally closed behind her, shutting away the loud clamor of voices. An echo from the noise rang in her ears within the silence of the room.

Sitting at his desk, leaning into his hands, arms outstretched on either side of him like the wings of a bird, was Tommy, his head hung low between his shoulders. She heard him take a deep breath before he straightened.

"Whatever it is, it can—" he begun to say as he stood, before realizing it was her. "Grace."

Pushing off from the wooden door, she stepped into the middle of the room, her heels sinking into the Persian carpet.

"You look as tired as I feel."

He tucked one hand into the pocket of his navy trousers, running the other over his face. "I should have agreed to an elopement."

"I did ask you for one."

"Don't remind me." He pulled his silver case from his jacket and lit a fresh cigarette. It was nearly at his mouth when she gently plucked it from his fingers.

"I'll have one today."

His lips pulled up into a short smile. "Hours to go yet."

"You've been far away." She half-sat on the edge of his desk.

A soft hum of acknowledgement left his throat. "I've been trying to keep the Lee's from stealing the silver, John from gutting a red coat, and Arthur from proselytizing."

"No leash for Polly?"

"Polly can behave herself. Though she'll curse like a man no matter what company she keeps."

The warm smoke filled her lungs when she took a long drag. As she exhaled, she observed the circles under his eyes, his pale skin, and the lines around his mouth. "But that's not all, is it Tommy?"

He came around his desk, taking a seat in the leather chair before her. She turned her waist to face him. Around them, the leather-bound books lining the walls kept silent testimony.

"You've been anxious for weeks."

"I'm run thin, Grace. Between today, the business, my family, yours." He placed particular emphasis on "yours."

"It's our wedding day, Tommy. We'll only get the one. Come out of your head." She softened her words by tapping his calf with the toebox of her satin heel. "At least for a little while."

His tight smile didn't hold much promise. He took the cigarette in her hand, inhaled, then gave it back to her.

"Maybe Charlie will cheer you. Mary is bringing him down."

She had expected the news to be well-received, but whatever levity she had been trying to build faded at his reply.

"No," he said firmly around a mouthful of smoke, shaking his head. "Keep him upstairs."

"You were the one who insisted."

"I've changed my mind."

"You were adamant."

"Grace, I said no."

She looked away from him, crushing the cigarette into a glass ashtray, then standing from the desk. Finally, she met his stare. "What's going on, Tommy?"

"Nothing. There are people here that weren't on the list. I don't want Charlie in reach of strangers."

"But that's not all of it."

Silence stretched out between them. When it became apparent that he had nothing more to say, Grace marched from the room, the door slamming behind her.

* * *

Author's Notes:

This chapter was a struggle to write. There's so much going on during the wedding that it's difficult to find organic moments where Tommy and Grace can speak candidly about difficult subjects. I'm continuing to take liberties with the order of events and with scenes, deviating from canon (such as giving them a few minutes alone at home before the guests arrive from the church).

Historical Notes:

Any historical notes below are cobbled together using copy and paste, with editing for brevity and clarity.

\- Many houses still used fireplaces to heat in the 1920's. However, central furnace heating became popular providing hot air. Larger houses required steam or hot water boilers and radiators. Firing the furnace meant hand shoveling small lump coal into the furnace, sometimes every 2 hours or so. Hand adjustments of the draft and damper on the furnace regulated the amount of heat provided to the house, which, in turn set the coal shoveling frequency. A considerable amount of smoke, gasses and dust worked its way thru the hot air ducts directly from the furnace to the floor registers in each room. "Clinker", or the burnt remains of coal had to be removed almost daily so the furnace would continue working.

A half winter supply of coal was delivered to a home through a coal door at the side or rear of the house. The coal truck would get close, extend a metal chute through the coal door and into a coal pile in the basement. From there, the coal was hand-shoveled into a furnace. Starting in the 1920's and 1930's some more affluent homeowners could afford a new invention called a "stoker", a small metal coal hopper that sat over a metal feed screw, which fed small pieces of coal to the furnace. An upstairs thermostat activated the coal feed which increased the house heat.

This dependency on coal meant that larger homes had to plan their orders for the winter because they needed A LOT of coal. The Biltmore Estate in America, for example, placed coal orders that numbered hundreds of thousands of tons.

\- The history of perfume, specifically as it relates to men, is a long one. Originally, perfume was unisex. Cologne was only a name used to describe the ratio of oils to alcohol and did not have the masculine connotations it does today. Everyone could wear cologne and everyone could wear perfume. Perfume was extremely popular for both sexes in the 18th century. In the late 19th century there are some suggestions that it lost popularity among men, seen as a bit too feminine, besides which, it was expensive and not easily accessible to working class men until synthetic scents and better extraction methods were developed. But, nevertheless, there were wealthy men who continued to wear it and ordered bespoke mixes. Acqua di Parma was an Italian cologne first developed in 1916 and used originally to perfume men's handkerchiefs (they're still in business today). It had a lighter, fresher scent than the heavier perfumes fashionable at the time, and as such was widely popular across Europe. A tough gangster from Birmingham would probably never wear perfume. But, as we can see in Season 3, Tommy is fond of expensive creature comforts. I like the idea of him secretly liking cologne, especially if it was Grace who got it for him.

\- Proraso was a brand of men's grooming and shaving supplies developed in 1908. They were lightly scented and continue to be used today. "Green" line products are scented primarily with eucalyptus oil and menthol and are the first line of products produced by the company.

\- Before pressurized cans allowed for instant shaving cream, men used shaving soap and a shaving brush to create a rich lather.

\- It was hard to find details specifying the popularity of safety razors in the UK during the early 20's. They were around, undoubtedly, and were very popular in the US because Gillette had cleverly gotten a government contract (where his safety razors were included in the kits given to soldiers), but their popularity in the UK is a little bit harder to gauge through cursory online searches.

\- The phrase "no such thing as foul play in love and war," has an incredibly long history. It's phrasing has changed over the centuries, but Grace and Tommy would definitely be familiar with a version of it.

\- There's a phenomenal description of Tommy's wedding suit by BAMF Style, titled "Tommy Shelby's Blue Wedding Suit." Linen, according to them, is apparently the most accurate historical choice for a handkerchief in the 1920s. And his suit would have been the height of fashion. The blue, a rare choice for Tommy, also sets it apart from his usual grays and blacks. Additionally, it was accurate of the production team not to do up the lowermost button of his vest (apparently this button is always left unfastened)

\- _Nell _is short for Helen, which is Grace's middle name in the show.

\- I've based Shannon House, the country home of Grace's uncle, on Portumna Castle, which does sit near the Shannon River Basin and Lough Derg.

\- The menu for the Christmas Breakfast was taken from a historical site describing a breakfast served in 1906 (albeit likely from America), which listed the following: oranges, germia, broiled salt mackerel, chipped beef on toast, baked potatoes, griddle cakes, muffins, coffee.

\- Snow in Portumna is apparently very rare.

\- I tried to find the times when breakfast would be served and the times when a church service would be held on Christmas Day in the Protestant tradition, but could find nothing specific to the time period. Thus, that bit about breakfast preceded by church may be inaccurate. If anyone has any information on that, leave a comment, please!

\- Originally, I mentioned creamy coffee served with whiskey in Grace's memories of her 1918 Christmas, but Irish Coffee wasn't invented until the 1940's, so I replaced it with a Hot Toddy (tea spiked with brandy, sweetened with syrup, and flavored by spices).

\- Grace's Christmas evening gown is heavily inspired by the 1896 Lily Dress by Worth. The version I imagine her wearing wouldn't have the large, white Bertha collar. House of Worth was one of the most expensive and popular couture houses in the Victorian era. In 1918, it would have looked out of place among the looser, simpler silhouettes of the Edwardian Era. It was also an incredibly elaborate dress and eccentric even for the time in which it was designed. Given that Grace was surrounded by an intimate gathering of close friends and family, it may have been tolerated—or I may have let the story get away from me.

\- Lanvin and Vionnet were two couture houses that were very popular at the time.


	6. Let This Be Enough

Let This Be Enough

1924

Soundlessly, Grace shut the adjoining door to the nursery—Charlie had finally fallen asleep. Leaning her forehead against the painted wood, one hand still upon the glass knob, she closed her eyes in the hopes that this moment's stolen peace would stretch out before her into hours.

Downstairs, the dinner table was covered by an immaculately laundered white linen cloth, into which were tucked forty-two mahogany Chippendale chairs with openwork splats. Footmen, overseen by the exacting Mr. Williams, had set out the cut crystal, the Bernardaud china, and the Tiffany silverware, measuring the distances between each item. Over a watered-silk runner rested tall candelabras, interspersed between twenty squat, silver urns holding arrangements of velvety orchids in claret, creamy white roses, burgundy carnations, tissue-like sea lavender, and playful baby's breath, shot through with sprays of eucalyptus, Leyland cedar, and leatherleaf fern. These were softly illuminated by the candlelight, which danced across the crystal and the silver in flickering flashes. In the corners of the room, electric bulbs, hidden beneath frosted glass orbs and upheld by the bronze arms of tall, beautiful nymphs, filled in the shadows. The sounds of a string quartet, tucked by the windows, played on.

The wedding guests trickled into this room of warm colors and mellow music, pouring forth through the double doors. They split into two rows, parting before the table like the arms of a river before a canyon. To her left sat her family, and on her right, Tommy's. Both parties looked across the narrow expanse of the tablecloth. They faced each other like the German and British armies staring out over no-man's land to survey the enemy trenches. From their Chippendale parapets, they launched their attacks.

_"What is it you do, exactly?"_

_"I'm a bookmaker."_

_"A bookmaker? How very modern. Yes, quite modern."_

_"What division did you serve in?"_

_"The 4th Dragoon Guards."_

_"Fancy name, ain't it Johnny?"_

_"Rations must have been good fare."_

_"As far as those things go, yes, I suppose they were."_

_"We ate rats in the tunnels."_

_"Fred was a deft hand at roasting them."_

_"Big, fat rats. It don't take a genius to guess what they got fat on."_

_"John—"_

_"I'm surprised you weren't late to the wedding."_

_"John, that's enough."_

_"I beg your pardon?"_

_"Nothin,' just that you cavalry lot have a reputation."_

_"I'm not sure I know what you mean."_

As their wedding guests eviscerated each other bloodlessly over the meal, her appetite withered away like seafoam on the shore. The oysters over ice, the cucumber soup with dill garnish, the broiled fish with watercress salad, the veal croquettes in béchamel sauce, the lamb roast with glazed carrots, the palette-cleansing sherbet; these things passed her by in a nauseating parade of barbed quips. She observed distantly as the crisp tablecloth soaked in splashes of wine or port, the size and number of stains proportional to the level of alcohol imbibed.

At her side, Thomas, who had favored his whiskey glass over his dinner plate, seemed equally stone-faced and prickly. Her anger towards him had followed her from his study and sustained itself on the poisonous fumes rising from the dinner table. She found it a relief when a maid leaned down to whisper in her ear.

"The baby is ready for bed, Mrs. Shelby."

She'd excused herself from the minefield of their dining room, and now found herself in the master suite, leaning before the vanity to reapply her lipstick.

At its heart, their bedroom featured a large rosewood bed, dressed in silken pewter sheets, set over an ivory rug whose thick, soft pile was a sensual delight under the soles of her feet early in the mornings. Behind the bed towered a bay window three times her height. It took up the entire wall, with original diamond-pane latticework at the transom, and newly replaced single-hung, sash windows to best showcase the front gardens. White paneling disguised the French shutters, which the maids drew closed most nights. In the mornings, when he was sure she was awake, Thomas would slip out of their warm sheets to open them. Rosy tendrils of shy sunlight would unfurl into the room, chasing away the cozy darkness which had sheltered them through dreams; illuminating the ivory pattern of peacocks and stenciled flowers on the muted, emerald wallpaper.

The sound of footsteps in the hall reached her, followed by the bedroom door creaking open—it stuck, sometimes, from the many layers of paint applied to it over the decades. Through the mirror, Grace watched Thomas walk in.

"You're needed downstairs."

He was down to his waistcoat, shirt wrinkled about the golden arm garters he favored, and hair mused from worrying it.

She finished applying her lipstick without answering.

He spread one arm outwards, towards the open door, as if to emphasize where he expected her to go. "Grace," he said slowly, "you're needed downstairs. Arthur wants to give his speech."

"I was putting the baby to bed. He kept asking for you, but Mary says you weren't at the table." She capped her lipstick, placing it into the velvet-lined drawer of the vanity.

He stared at her through the mirror, nodded, and moved to close the bedroom door firmly. He stood with his back to her for a moment. Distantly, the sounds of the clock striking the hour could be heard. It's deep, resounding chimes were the only sound in the room.

Thomas stepped from the shadows of the foyer, leaning his elbow over a tall chest of drawers and massaging his temples with one hand, as if he had a headache. "I'm sorry to have missed it."

"You've missed a number of things today, Thomas."

"I needed a smoke and a talk with John; away from those red coats before one of us spilled blood at the dinner table."

She swiveled to look at him, palms outstretched at her sides. "I'm sorry they wore their uniforms, Thomas, but—"

"Yeah, they fucking did—"

"For God's sake—"

"—they sure fucking did."

"—it doesn't mean anything!"

"It means fucking everything if you fought in that fucking war."

"How would I know anything about that when you never speak of it?"

He walked away from her, into the bathroom. She followed, her blood high, her footsteps eating up the ground. But the fight in her drained away when she saw him, sitting on the edge of the tub, head in his hands, fingers curled tight into his hair.

He sighed and looked up at her when she stood before him.

"This isn't about the uniforms or about the bad blood downstairs. Tell me what's wrong, Tommy."

"Nothing's wrong, Grace."

There had been fears living within her for the past two years; dark, unfounded secrets that floundered in the light of his affection, but rose like shadows at dusk in the aftermath of harsh words or long silences. He had been so nervous these last few weeks, snapping at the servants, at his family, at her, in uncharacteristic bouts of caustic replies.

"Do you regret it?"

"Regret what, Grace?"

"Meeting me again in London? Charlie?"

He remained silent, looking at her for a long while. "Are you really asking me that?"

"I need to know it's business making you this way and not regret over me."

She turned her head to the side, to escape his hard stare, absently observing the tiles above the paneled tub. "You've always had great ambition, Tommy. The way things happened between us…There are days when I wonder if you don't wish I'd never come back."

"Even when Kimber was one gunshot away from killing me, I've never regretted you."

"Then tell me it's business. Say it now and I'll know it's true."

"It's business, Grace. Bad business all around." A pause, then a long sigh. Looking at the ground, he added, "And I'm scared, Grace."

Fear was a word she could hardly imagine in relation to him. He seemed so surefooted at even his lowest moments. "Of what?"

He shook his head, reaching into his waistcoat pocket for his silver case of cigarettes. "I'm scared for you. I'm scared for the baby."

The blood iced within her veins. The room shrunk around her, its tall ceiling coming down on her head. "Is this why you wouldn't let Mary bring Charlie down? Has someone threatened him?"

"No, no. That's not it."

"Then why are you afraid?"

"I just am" he said, taking in a deep drag of the cigarette. "Look, this is how I am when I'm scared. It's unfamiliar to you but not to me. I can fucking be scared and carry on. I know it's not pleasant to look at, not a joy to be around. Alright? I'm sorry."

She stepped into the space between his legs, kneeling on the ground, the cold tile hard and unyielding. Setting her hands on either thigh, she said, "Tell me what you're afraid of, Tommy. Tell me the truth."

"It's nothing, Grace. It's just me in my head."

"I doubt you've forgotten what I used to do for a living, Thomas. There have been strange cars coming and going for weeks; your brothers have been hanging around your study in closeted meetings where not a single maid is allowed to interrupt. You're irritable—worse, you're nervous—and a Russian who has no place at our wedding is asking odd questions about the company."

His blue eyes remained unreadable, even as he looked down at her hand on his knee, which he took into his own, lacing their fingers.

"You promised me, Thomas. Partners, in life, in business, in everything."

"I'm starting to see what your uncle was talking about."

"What?"

A faint smile curved the corners of his lips, "He said you were too headstrong, for a woman."

She clicked her tongue against her teeth in irritation.

"His words, not mine."

"You're trying to distract me."

"I am."

"Tommy, are you going to tell me what you're afraid of or not?"

The air was warm and dry from the radiator, almost stifling within the smaller space. Silence stretched between them, interrupted only by a drop of water falling from the faucet into the porcelain sink.

He spoke not a word.

She leaned all of her weight into her palms, digging them into his knees to stand, ripping her hand away from where he held it. Her heels clicked harshly over the tile, then the wooden floorboards. Sitting at the vanity, she tucked errant strands of hair beneath the diamond headband for want of anything else to express her frustration. Thomas appeared behind her in the mirror. He walked around her, obstructing her view.

"Stand up," he said quietly, placing his hands on her arms.

"No—"

Ignoring her, he pulled her up. "Stand up, come on." He stubbed the cigarette out in an ashtray, then gripped her jaw gently, holding her face so she had to look at him. Leaning down to meet her stare, his eyes holding hers, he said with utmost seriousness, "Arthur's speech."

"What?"

"I'm scared of fucking Arthur's speech."

A laugh bubbled up out of her, despite what she was truly feeling. She sighed, smoothing the front of his waistcoat. "So am I."

He pulled her close, wrapping his arms about her shoulders. She let them have this reprieve, breathing him in, listening to his heartbeat, feeling the quiet silence sink into them.

One of his arms dropped down beneath the small of her back, grasping her skirt in a fist, dragging it up.

"Tommy—"

Kisses dropped along her neck.

"Tommy, there's half the British army waiting for us downstairs."

"They're King's Irish. I waited two weeks in the mud for them."

He herded her closer to bed, toppling her gently into it. The mattress with its silken sheets was soft beneath her, but even still, she feared for the delicate waves in her styled hair. Already, the diamond headband shifted against her scalp, straining against the pins keeping it in place. "Tommy, there are things that if I take off, I won't be able to put back." She strained her neck, trying to keep her head from sinking into the mattress and crushing her hair.

"That's alright." He said, bending over her, kissing her. His lips traveled a path over her skin, soft caresses that took the stiffness out of her neck and plucked all concerns from her mind.

"Hello, Mrs. Shelby. I'm sorry for being busy in my head." His hands dragged her skirt up higher and he unzipped his fly, settling in the cradle of her hips. "Let us complete the ceremony."

She laughed, then chastised him. "You'll ruin your trousers."

"I have others."

"You'll wrinkle my dress."

"You have others."

"Not like this I don't. Thomas—"

He gripped the back of her knee, hooking it over his hip. A glimmer of light caught his attention, and he turned his face down to look at her thigh. "I like these," he said, tracing the glass gemstones that decorated the garters holding up her thigh-high stockings. She could feel the ghost of that touch through the silk; gooseflesh broke out across her flesh.

Catching his hand, she brought it up to her lips to kiss.

"You aim to distract me through underhanded means, Mr. Shelby."

Her head fell back when his fingers slipped between them, her eyes closing against the sharp pleasure.

He dragged his nose along her neck, up her jaw, his temple resting against her own. She felt his breath whisper over her hair when he spoke next, the words dropped into the shell of her ear.

"Love and war, Grace."

She helped him into his waistcoat, slipping five buttons through their eyelets, leaving the bottommost one undone, to ensure the notched edges of the vest moved with him as he sat or stood. Her hands wrapped around his waist, gauging the fit.

"Turn around."

When his back was to her, she tightened the strap. Running her hands over the satin, Grace pushed lightly against one shoulder blade.

Tommy turned to face her. "You're quiet."

"We forgot your watch." She walked to the rosewood bedside table, spotting the golden gleam of the closed hunter-case. All the while, Tommy's eyes followed her.

"It's never a good thing when you're quiet."

Taking the T-bar clasp, she slid it through the third buttonhole in his vest, tucking the watch into the lower left pocket. She arranged the onyx fob to fall face out, and adjusted the open-link chain leading to the watch, ensuring it hung in a perfect arch.

"Where did you throw your collar?"

"Grace—"

Peaking from the edge of the bed, she spotted a thin, white strip of starched fabric. "Will you get that, please?"

Thomas looked to where she pointed. He leaned one hand onto the bed, tipping forward to retrieve his collar, which he handed to her silently.

She sat on the chaise, where his tie lay. Threading the knit silk through the inside fold of the collar, she stood and walked behind him to attach it at the golden stud sewn into the shirt's tunic neck, fighting to keep the tie neatly within the starched fabric. "This would be easier if you weren't already in your shirt."

"We were in a rush."

"As Arthur has kindly reminded us."

"At least he didn't interrupt."

She turned him to face her, attaching the final stud, weaving the tie over and under into the knot he favored.

When she was done, he stilled her hands, holding them against his chest. "Alright, out with it."

Finally, she looked at him. "Do you trust me?"

"You know I do."

"Then tell me the truth."

"It's complicated, Grace."

"Are you saying I'm simple?"

He scoffed a laugh. "Anything but, love."

She stretched out her fingers, reaching up to cradle his jaw. He still held onto her wrists as she gripped him. "Partners, Tommy. In life, in business, in the whole fucking thing. Those were your words in Birmingham. Prove them now, if you've really forgiven me for betraying them."

"Arthur's going to come knocking again."

"Tommy—"

He led her to one side of the bed, sitting her down on it. "Wait." Walking to their bedroom door, he opened it, looked out into the hallway, then closed and locked the door. He sat beside her in bed, their thighs touching. He told her everything, from Churchill covertly funding the Whites in Georgia, to his role and his interests in the mad plot.

"The Russian downstairs. Is it him?"

"He's a soviet."

"An agent?"

"Yes."

"And what does that mean for us?"

"That he has to be taken care of."

She cradled her head in her hands, leaning her elbows on her knees. "Christ, Tommy. In our own house?"

"You wanted the truth, Grace."

"Promise me something."

Taking his hand, she placed it flat over her heart. His fingers curled gently against her, the warmth of his skin bled through her silk bodice. "Can you feel that?"

"Yes," he said, looking at their hands.

"Promise me, on my life, on Charlie's, that this will all end soon. That this business with the Russians will be the last of it."

"Grace—"

"I don't care about the liquor or the smuggling or the fixed races. That doesn't worry me. But this sort of thing, this will get us killed, Tommy."

"It's not so easy, Grace."

She pressed his hand more firmly against her rapid heartbeat. "You're not an average man. You can move mountains when you want to. Give me this, as your wedding vow to me."

"What would you have me swear?"

"To settle for the life we have, Tommy. To let this be enough."

"It is enough, Grace."

"If only you believed that."

He touched her cheek, cupping her jaw. "I can promise you this: I'll keep us safe."

"That's not what I asked."

"I know, Grace."

She looked away from him, facing the wall opposite, staring at the pattern of peacocks in the paper. They swirled before her in unfocused lines. "Pride and ambition."

"Don't—"

"Mark me, Thomas."

"Don't say it."

"These will be our end." The words came to life between them, like the explosive sound of a bullet, which once fired from its chamber could never be returned to it.

The ballroom had white paneling in the French rococo style, decorated lightly with gold leaf. These were broken by swathes of a silken fabric in pastel yellow, used as wallpaper. The rich decor fit well within the cavernous room, from which hung three crystal chandeliers, each over a meter in diameter. Mirrors caught the light they cast and reflected it back into the room, along with the rainbow flashes of the faceted pendalogues.

Grace paused before one such mirror, whose gilded frame stretched to a width of six meters. Beneath it sat a silver punch bowl bracketed by crystal candelabras.

At her side stood Polly, in a flattering pewter dress of velvet brocade set into chiffon silk. Her smile was too wide. She looked like a woman in a painting, the courtesans with their vixen eyes and curling lips.

"Polly."

"Hello, Grace."

She took a sip from her punch while Grace served herself a cup. "You look absolutely beautiful. Everything, the dress—" she waved a hand slowly about her head, "—your hair. Everything. Beautiful."

Looking at her through the mirror, over the rim of her silver cup, Grace took a sip of the punch, then said. "Oh, I see. Tommy's orders?"

Polly remained smiling and unspeaking.

"No upsets tonight?"

"Welcome to the family."

Grace had been about to raise her cup, but she paused, that sentence cutting through her composure. Few people managed to burrow themselves so successfully under her skin as Polly did. Every word she spoke traveled through her ear like a needle prickling into her brain. The instinct to prick back was too strong. "You know," she began, "there are certain things you would like to keep me away from. Certain things that Tommy would as well. But from the moment he met me, he's told me his secrets."

Taking out her cigarette case, Polly lit a licorice-wrapped cigarillo, maintaining her wide smile. "Men are so easily lead, aren't they?"

"Today, I could tell he was keeping things from me. We went upstairs to have sex, and after he told me everything."

It was vulgar to say it, and unfair to Thomas to paint him like some green boy led by his prick, but she wanted to dig that needle deep into Polly's ear, to wipe the vixen's smile from her face.

"The business with the Russians, with Churchill. The Whites purchasing guns to fight their revolution in Georgia. Tommy doesn't believe they stand a chance."

Polly's smile finally faded away. Through the smoke of her cigarillo, she stared carefully at Grace. "You know it's begun tonight? The business with the Russians?"

Both of them had turned a little to face the party. On the dance floor, the tasseled skirts of women rose and fell like ribbons in the wind; beads sewn into hemlines or bodices caught the light in glimmering facets; men's coattails flared open when they spun their partners in short, fast circles; watch chains flew against waistcoats; and glasses of champagne or whiskey trembled precariously in the hands of their owners, the liquor within spilling out in translucent, amber arches. The blonde floorboards, varnished to a high-gloss finish, had been polished the evening previous. They would need to be polished again.

Grace continued to observe the guests as she replied. "Yes. I know. Though I'll admit it took everything I had to pry that fact from Thomas."

"You're quite good at that, it seems. Weaseling out secrets."

"Let's not forget what I made my living on."

"Oh, sweetheart," Polly said, casting a loaded glance at her, "It's only Thomas that's forgotten what you are."

Grace savored an insult, like a bit of molten chocolate, but let it die upon her tongue. She looked down into the contents of her silver cup, then at Polly. "He has forgotten, but contrary to what you might think, I wish he would remember. I wish he would use what I learned in that time."

"He'll never mix you up with this."

"Yet he'll use you? Arthur, John, Ada? Even Finn?"

"It's not the same to him. We've always been a part of this. It's who we are."

"I've been a Shelby for two years, whether you'll admit it or not."

"You weren't born to it, much less with that family of yours, all gilded red."

"That gilded family has connections in parliament, the army, the constabulary—"

"Don't boast about your connections, darling. Thomas had a chance to marry a woman who could open doors you'll never even manage to knock on."

"I'm not May Carleton." Grace had planned to follow that sentence with a meaningful point, but Polly spat out a barb so poisonous even she seemed taken aback.

"No, you're an adulteress with a bastard and a family whose importance is, like Ireland itself, fast becoming irrelevant."

The music around them, ragtime, loud in their ears, seemed to shrink away beneath the immense presence of those words. Polly took a step back, placing her hand on the table to steady herself.

Staring at her through unblinking eyes, Grace raised her free hand slowly, plucking the cigarette case from Polly's grasp. She took her time pulling a cigarillo from its interior, placing it to her lips with no hurry. Perhaps as a sort of peace offering, Polly extended her lighter.

Finally, Grace felt composed enough to speak.

"I'm not May Carleton, that's true. I am an adulteress, that's also true. And that bastard," she cast the word through closed teeth, "is your blood."

Polly cleared her throat, looking away into the crowd. "You know I love Charlie."

They smoked, unspeaking, listening to the rising music, watching the dancing.

"Despite the doors I can't open," Grace finally said, "my family has connections in important places. They can secure introductions and I can secure information through them."

Polly remained quiet, taking a deep drag of her cigarillo, holding the smoke in her lungs before releasing it slowly. Her eyes observed her all the while, flickering over the planes of her face. "You're serious."

"Whatever hate you might feel for me, you share my love for him. I want him out of this world, Polly. I want him safe. I want Charlie safe."

Grace had already cut out her heart, there was no point in hiding it now. "You've always dealt in the unseen, haven't you? Tommy says you have the sight."

Polly watched her carefully. She took the cigarillo from her mouth and crushed it into a glass ashtray beside the punch bowl. "What about it?"

"I've never believed in things like that, not really. But there's something in me," Grace paused, unable to describe the chill in her veins, the sensation of skeletal fingers softly stroking her shoulders. "I want to untangle him from all this before it's too late. And this business with the Russians. He needs every ally he can get."

Her voice faded beneath the loud music and before Polly could reply, a woman hanging on Esme's arm tumbled into them.

"It's the bride!" Her screeching laugh pitched as high as the trumpets on stage. Esme shot them both a look through a frown. "This is my sister. In case you couldn't tell, she's three sheets to the wind."

"Grace—" The sister began, then she looked to Esme "—Can I call her 'Grace?'"

"Fuck off," Esme replied, to which the sister continued on, unbothered.

"I just had to tell you, Mrs. Shelby, Grace, how much I liked your spiffy bouquet. I love lily-of-the-valley. It means happiness, don't you know?"

"Yes," Polly interjected, looking sweetly between her and the lush. "It's also a deadly poison. A perfect choice for our bride."

The blood rushed to her cheeks and Grace gripped her cup with white-knuckled fingers. "Did nothing of what I just said mean anything to you?"

Esme looked down at her closed fist, then up between the two of them. Instead of taking her sister with her, she remained, always eager to gather information.

"Don't expect me to cut the quips. It's tradition."

"Polly, I'm serious."

"This week, come visit me. For tea."

"I love tea," the drunk laughed.

"Tea." Grace said flatly.

"Yes, afternoon tea. Isn't that what rich girls do?" Polly added.

"Have you always been rich, Mrs. Shelby?"

"Shut up, you idiot," Esme spat.

Grace turned to march away, but Polly's hand shot out to grip her wrist. Their eyes met. With one hand, Polly took the fresh cigarillo from her mouth, with the other she held onto her. "The same thing you want for Thomas, for Charlie, I want for Michael."

The music playing on stage abruptly stopped as the Master of Ceremonies approached the microphone. His rich voice spread over the room, cutting between them. "Ladies and Gentlemen, the bride and groom will now dance alone."

In her periphery, Grace could see Tommy approaching. She placed a smile on her face, feeling the eyes of the room upon her.

Thomas reached her with an outstretched hand, which she took.

They came together in the center of the dance floor, in a space cleared by the guests. His right hand clasped hers, his left curled around her waist. The band struck up a slow jazz tune. Thomas began to lead, holding her close as they swayed. Their cheeks touched.

"Should I be worried?" He said, the words whispering by her ear.

"About what?"

"Polly clutching your wrist. Both of you locked in a duel."

She shook her head slightly. "You witnessed a truce."

"Given the two of you, that's more troubling than a war."

"Perhaps you should be worried."

His lips curled into a smile against her neck. He set a kiss onto her jaw. "Perhaps I should."

The faces watching them seemed to fall away, the room narrowed the focus of its embrace, the music spinning about them.

"Grace," his voice had lost its teasing edge, "what you said in the bedroom—"

He squeezed her hand, looking at her intently. "I'll keep us safe, Grace. I promise you."

But he still hadn't given her the vow she truly wanted. She knew he never would, because he wasn't capable of it. It was not in his nature, as she'd once told him.

"I love you, Grace."

Her answering smile was small, her voice a shadow when she replied, "I love you."

He kissed her: a brief, sweet kiss in consideration of their audience. But he pressed her closer into him, bringing the hand at her waist up between her shoulders, fingers splayed, to hold her more securely, to shield her.

Grace closed her eyes, tucking her face against his neck. She did not want to see the world around them, she only wanted to feel him, his warmth, and his love.

Let that be enough.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Thanks to everyone for the kind comments! I hadn't realized the double paragraph breaks between one scene and the next weren't coming into effect, it must have made it a little difficult to identify when one scene ends and another begins. Apologies for that! Like the issue with the italics, that's something I'll have to keep an eye out for. Also, if you haven't yet read the lyrics to Nick Cohen's Breathless, which they played in Peaky Blinders just after Grace and Tommy get married…then you're missing out. This show knows how to choose the perfect song to support a scene!

**Historical Notes:**

_Any historical notes below are cobbled together using copy and paste, with some editing for brevity and clarity._

\- The menu described from the wedding dinner is based on historical accounts of foods and menus served in the early 20th century (with some liberties, such as the mention of veal croquettes). Weeks after writing this I stumbled across a fabulous recipe book based on the show Downton Abbey. It's titled The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook by Annie Gray and has a fairly comprehensive list of British upstairs/downstairs recipes along with historical notes.

\- The 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards was a cavalry regiment in the British Army. The regiment landed in France at the outbreak of the First World War as part of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade in the 1st Cavalry Division on 16 August 1914 for service on the Western Front.

\- "The king's Irish." As in the Northern Irish Protestants

\- The show drops some clues as to why the Peaky boys would hate cavalry uniforms at their dinner table. There are hints that they "waited two weeks in the mud" for the cavalry, so likely it's a personal grief specific to our fictional characters. But, on a historical and social note, Grace's family comes from a privileged class of officers. Not too long ago (for people in the 1920s), British commissions could still be purchased and sold, though the practice was abolished well before WWI, the wealthy had taken ample advantage of this system, and Grace's family likely did as well. Additionally, there were serious differences between how officers were treated and how privates were treated. Those uniforms, therefore, also represent a class division, the haves and the have-nots.

\- The description of Grace attaching the detachable collar and the pocket watch come from various sources. There's a great Youtube video showing how it would have been easier to thread the tie through the collar before attaching the collar to the shirt. The pocket watch Tommy wears could possibly be a T-bar chain, as it disappears behind the buttonhole of his vest. The chain also features long, rectangular open links and a decorative fob (in some sort of dark stone). Hunter-case describes a pocket watch with a metal face that can be popped open to reveal the glass face of the watch (it protected the glass from damage).

\- Pendalogues is the term for the individual crystals which make up a chandelier.

\- I keep trying to find the brand or name of the cigarettes Polly might have smoked. There were flavored cigarettes that had dark wrapping papers, and there were also dark wrapping papers sold to roll your own cigarettes, but as to the proper name or the likeliest type Polly might have smoked, I'm left in the dark.


	7. We’ll Grow a Vineyard

We’ll Grow a Vineyard  
1924

On the eleventh of November, church bells marked the eleventh hour of an otherwise ordinary Tuesday. Their metallic clatter echoed from the wooden belfry—with its peeling paint and broken siding—to travel through unpaved streets, winding between rubbish heaps, wooden crates, narrow alleys strewn with piles of rusty iron, and the various debris of an industrial city.

In response to the bells, factory whistles began to emit shrill shrieks, one after the other in rapid succession, taking up a call that spread across the whole of Birmingham. The stacks attached to these respective factories, each like a brick giant belching black smoke into the grey sky, stuttered and coughed as the furnaces feeding them cooled.

Beside The Garrison, the sounds of the forge—whose open door spat red-hot sparks and seemed the gaping maw of a dragon—cut off abruptly. The smiths and apprentices who moments ago had toiled with hammers to reshape stubborn iron, emerged from the burning heat and into the cold, November morning, their faces streaked with soot. Others followed, pulled from the monotony of their regular occupations by the persistent call of the bells.

On the unpaved streets, muddy from a recent rainfall, lorries rolled to a stop; drivers drew on the reins of their horses; pedestrians paused in their hurried commute—the droning hum of industry ground to a screeching and abrupt halt.  
It was within this unusual stillness where Grace called to mind memories of her brother. His face, which at one point she could imagine with photographic clarity, now came into focus only as individual parts: his river eyes, blue-green like the distant sea seen from the shores of Galway; his nose, straight and narrow; his red cheeks, always flushed no matter how little sunlight there was to warm them; the lopsided curl of his closed smile, beneath which he hid a row of crowded lower teeth.

One unremarkable Wednesday, sometime in 1915, a year before his death, William returned from the war. He arrived without warning, preceding his letter by several days and startling her in the kitchen. She nearly dropped a kettle of boiling water at his appearance. Just before it could slip from her fingers, she set it hard upon the ground with a metallic clash, her heart still leaping and galloping ahead of her thoughts.

He stood next to the doorframe, having come in from the hall. His hair was greasy and his boots were dusted with three days’ worth of travel. It looked as if he’d gotten taller, a suspicion confirmed by the hemline of his trousers. Her eyes swept over him with desperate, unchecked amazement.“You’re home.”

“Yes.”

A laugh burst free from her chest and she rushed to him, throwing her arms about his shoulders. They were knocked into the wall by the force of her enthusiasm. She heard the dull thud of his head strike the naked masonry and felt the sting of the abrasive stone against the thin skin of her knuckles; her hands, caught beneath him, were pinned like the wings of a butterfly. But it hardly mattered to her then.

“You’re home.”

Gripping her more tightly, he yielded a “Yes” into the lace of her blouse.

His hands trembled against her shoulder-blades and her neck became damp. The joy she’d felt upon seeing him shifted as, with growing alarm, she realized he was crying.  
“William—”

She tried to pull back, but he wouldn’t let her, holding her desperately. She felt him shake, his chest heave; his fingers pressed bruises into her skin. The quiet room, with the soft breeze whispering in through the open window, filled with his hiccupping sobs.

Staring with wide eyes at the wall, her hands trapped uselessly beneath his back, she was afraid to let him go, unsure how to look at him or what to say once she did.

“It’s alright now, Will. You’re home. It’s alright.”

She shushed him gently as he pressed his face harder against her, tripping over his gasping breath. It seemed to take an age, through which she cooed and persuaded or remained quiet, sometimes whispering things to him in Irish; foolish, sweet things Mallory would say to them as children when they cried.

At last, he pulled away. But he wouldn’t let her look at him, giving her his back, wiping his cheeks roughly and striding forward to pick up the kettle.

“Where’s Mallory?” His horse voice was choked with snot, despite how he tried to pitch it.

“She’s gone to town.” Grace stood adrift in the space behind him, like a ship idling in the doldrums, unsure how to move forward. His officer’s uniform swallowed his tall, lean frame. The breadth of his shoulders, which should have seemed larger under the epaulets, looked narrow and childish.

He searched for the tea tin in its usual place, stretching up to reach the upper shelves, snuffling every few seconds to keep his nose from running.

“We’ve moved it,” she told him when he kept shifting sacks of flour and pots of honey.

“Oh. Yes, yes, of course. How foolish of me to think it would all be the same.”

“To your left.” And then, rather redundantly, she added “I was just making tea.”

William found the tin behind a box of arrowroot powder, which Mallory used to all purposes, from thickening sauces, to making biscuits, to curing upset stomachs, soothing rashes, and freshening up greasy hair between washes. In their childhood, when something kept them sick in bed, she would make them pots of beef tea and console them with arrowroot pudding, sweetened with sugar and cinnamon.

Taking a handkerchief from her sleeve, Grace came up to stand next to him. She set it on the worktop between them, busying herself with the tea things. With the help of a rag, she poured the water from the kettle into the brown betty, pretending she couldn’t hear him clean up. From the corner of her eye, she caught when he stuffed the daintily embroidered linen square into his pocket and carried on opening the tea tin.

Prizing the lid away, releasing a hint of bergamot oil, William placed the opened container on the scarred, wooden table behind them. She brought him the tea pot. Into the brown betty he tossed eight, expensive spoonfuls of finely chopped leaves. The tea fell through the rising steam to meet the boiled water below. Immediately, its perfume blossomed. He dipped the spoon into the tea tin one final time, where it clattered against the metal walls in its search for more.

“A touch strong.”

“I’ve missed strong tea.”

Grace came up next to him to rummage through the drawer, where they kept a strainer.

“Where’s father?”

“At the RIC.”

“Good. Christ, can you imagine what he’d say if he caught me blubbing?”

“He’s not an ogre, William.”

“Just about.”

She smiled, taking down two cups from their cabinet. “Let’s get out of the kitchen before Mallory catches us rummaging through her things.”

He carried the tea tray for her, the cups and the lid on the pot rattling along as they walked into the sitting room, where the afternoon sunlight fell over the blonde, wooden floor like pools of honey.

They sat on the green settee, side-by-side. It was the same sofa William had always favored for his reading. He’d lounge on it like a vagabond, legs akimbo, spine bent into unholy shapes, chin even with his chest, and a book resting on his stomach. Hours would pass with him there, his body gradually melting like wax into the cushions, adopting unnatural contours, and all the long while, him unbothered.

But on that day he barely sat; instead, he perched on the very edge of the cushion, his leg jostling and tapping, unable to keep still. From the corner of her eye, his teacup shook in its saucer, not only when it danced upon his knee, but when he lifted it to his lips.

She took it from him, setting it down on the table. His hand trembled in her grasp until he closed it in a fist.

“You’re shaking.”

“Quite common I’m told. It’ll go away on its own.” As if it were of no consequence, he took up his cup and saucer again.

Grace considered his face: the round face of a boy, with only the barest smattering of stubble; his eyes shining too brightly in their hollowed setting. She imagined the flare from a Verey pistol shooting into the sky, illuminating the night, its white light a gleaming reflection in the pupil of his eye.

“Are you still sympathizing with the rebels?” William asked, changing the direction of their conversation as abruptly as a horse shirking before a gate.

“You know I am. I’ve written to you about it. And don’t call them that.”

“Why not? It’s what they are.”

He took the pot from the tray, pouring himself a fresh cup. The brown betty shook in his hand—some of the water spilled over the cup’s rim. “You have to be more careful what you write, Grace.”

It was always a very serious matter when William used her Christian name.

“The war office reads every line. This soft spot you have for the Separatists, with the way things are going in Dublin, it could very well be taken for sedition.”

“Is it treason to see the justice in their cause? This is their country William; we took it through blood and might.”

“It’s our country, too. I’m bleeding for it in France.”

“We can’t be both, Will. Either we’re British or we’re Irish. That’s always been the problem with our family.”

“My darling sister, our family’s far more problems than that.”

Grace used her napkin to dab at the tea gathered in the saucer, lifting his teacup to wipe away the drops clinging to it. “Will it make things difficult for you, if I write about it?”

“I’d rather not find out. There’s too much patriotism right now for that sort of compassion.”

“Heaven forbid we should feel compassionate.”

“You can feel compassionate all you like, so long as you don’t say or do anything about it.”

“That’s awful, Will.”

“They’re jailing people for this, Grace. You must be more careful. Swear it to me, on Mam’s grave.”

“A tad far, don’t you think?”

“I won’t let up until you swear it.”

Rolling her eyes, she offered him the vow he demanded. “I suppose I’ll have to swallow my thoughts until you’re back.”

“Talk about it with the butcher’s boy. He’s been sweet on you since you put away your pinafores. He’d like you to rake his ashes, no doubt.”

“William!”

“What? It’s true!”

“By God, what are they teaching you in France?”

“How to curse and how to kill, old girl.”

His words were offered factually and casually, without the slightest bit of importance, as if he’d been asked the time.

She remained quiet, unable to find a reply to that. He dumped more sugar into his tea, the spoon’s clatter filling the silence.

From the kitchen, came the sounds of a pan striking the iron stove. William, teacup poised before his waiting lips, flinched. Drops of tea spilled down his shirtfront, blooming across the stiff fabric like ripples growing in a pond.

Helping him set the cup on the table and handing him his napkin, Grace said lightly, “That’s Mallory. You know she always makes a racket when she’s cooking.”

“Yes, yes. Of course.”

“You should go see her. She’s been terribly upset over you.”

They both stood, but he remained rooted to the spot when she tried to lead him from the room.

She turned to watch him shake his head, glassy-eyed. “I can’t. Not now.” A desperate, mad gleam had taken hold of him.

“Will—”

“Please, I don’t want her to see me like I was earlier. I’m so ashamed of it. Please, Nell, don’t make me. Please, please—”

Taking his hands in hers, she cut off his next plea quietly, so they wouldn’t be overheard. “Alright. It’s alright,” she soothed, “Go on up, I’ll tell her you’re resting.”

Her answer snuffed the frenetic, wild energy trembling through him. It drained out of him visibly, like the envelope of a hot air balloon collapsing under a cold burner.

Nodding, he straightened his uniform, twisting a polished button to avoid meeting her gaze. He still wouldn’t look at her when he sought the stairs in the foyer.

“Will,” Grace whispered.

He didn’t turn, only paused on the landing, head bent, shoulders bowed like the curled leaves of fern.

His name had fallen from her lips before she could consider. The thoughts racing through her mind were half-formed, birds hatched too soon with misshapen wings—they could not take flight.

“Nothing. It’s nothing. Rest up.”

Grace waited until he climbed the stairs, watching his narrow back disappear beyond the landing on the second floor.

His reunion with Mallory, when it came, was a dry-eyed one on his part, though their housekeeper cried enough for the three of them. For the rest of his short leave, he remained cheerful and utterly composed. Nothing at all like the frightened boy that appeared that day in the kitchen.

They spent six short days pretending nothing had changed. They hid his pack and his uniform beneath the bedstead; they sunbathed by the river, rowed on its cold, placid surface; they feasted on freshly caught fish and bought ices from the shops; they avoided the congratulatory crowds of their Unionist set or the disapproving Separatists scattered through the city; they idled away entire afternoons reading on the sofa, or playing whist with their father—who’d requested leave from the Constabulary; they joined Mallory in the drawing room, helping her knit socks and scarves meant for William, both of them rolling their eyes at her sentimental woolgathering. But most of all, they ignored the turning of the sun and the ticks on the calendar multiplying like a cancerous growth.

Through this, William slept unbelievably long stretches. Of the war, he spoke not a word, and neither she nor her father broached it.

  
On William’s last night at home, she crept through the sleeping house, pulling open the door to his bedroom. It was a young man’s room, not yet purged of childish treasures. Above the blue bookcase floated paper sailboats whose balsa wood skeletons were light enough to hang from insubstantial wires. They spun slowly in interminable circles, clockwise then counterclockwise. Tucked by the corners of the window—next to chemistry beakers filled with the iridescent remains of beetles—were stuffed animals, their furry pelts worn smooth through the years. At the foot of the metal bedstead sat a wooden trunk used for travel at some point by their father—its leather surface full of scratches from careless porters, the corners beaten into smooth, round edges. Within it were old schoolbooks and military memoirs; hidden amongst their pages were picture postcards of Mary Pickford and other, nameless girls dressed only in their underthings, their dark eyes gazing at the viewer through lowered lids and seductive smiles. She remembered the shock at having discovered them when William was hardly fourteen. And then the laughter she’d tried to suppress over toast and cocoa later that night, when she’d dropped hints about them in front of their father.  
William had gotten quite angry with her._“_

_Are you mad, Nell! He’d have my hide!”_

_“No, he wouldn’t. You’re a man, or nearly. You can get away with all sorts of indecent behavior.”_

_“You don’t realize how soft he is with you. I get treated like a private in the army.”_

_“He’s hard with me, too.”_

_“Nell, he positively dotes on you.”_

_“You’re just jealous.”_

_“Perhaps I am.”_

_“Oh, come off it. You’ll actually get to do something with your life. I’m destined for the aisle.”_

_“Don’t act the martyr, you’re always gathering wool about it. I’ve seen the wedding dresses you’ve sketched into the corners of those tawdry novels.”_

_“They’re romances!”_

_“So are my picture cards.”_

  
Grace closed the door softly behind her. Beneath a warm counterpane—decorated with tiny bluebells stitched by their mother nearly two decades ago—lay William. He was awake, staring up into the dark ceiling. She lifted a corner of the counterpane and he wiggled to the very edge of the narrow bed, giving her room to settle in beside him.

“Daid left some barbital out, to help you sleep. Should I fetch it?”

“No.”

The lace curtains in his room were pulled open. Lined up haphazardly on the sill, the outline of the stuffed animals and glass beakers formed a jagged silhouette. Behind them, far in the horizon, the glow of the city could be seen.

“I might be a coward, Nell.”

She wrinkled her brow, mouth parting slightly around half-formed thoughts. Grace turned on her side to face him, the sheets twisting beneath her, the springs creaking in protest. It was dark, a moonless night with only the faint glow of the sky to render the world in abstract lines.

“Why ever would you think that?”

“I feel ill when I think about tomorrow, about going back.”

Grace recalled the girls in town, the ones who tickled the noses of startled boys with white feathers. Her uncle Conner found them amusing; her father reviled them.

“Daid wouldn’t think you a coward. Do you know he gave Campbell a fabulous dressing down the other day?” Whispering through her smile, she added conspiratorially, “Shall I tell you about it?”

William nodded from his pillow, turning his head to look at her. She could just make out his eyes and his blonde hair, turned silvery grey in the shadows of the quiet room.

“We were at the cobbler’s, to fix up your winter boots for your return. On the way out, we ran into the Inspector. There’s the innumerable greetings and pleasantries; conversation flows. One thing leads to another, Campbell compliments your courage in volunteering, and in the same sentence, calls the boys staying at home cowards.”

From the corner of her eye, she could see William’s attention was fixed on her. He prompted her to continue.

“Daid was all politeness. He politely told Campbell that the only cowards were the ones throwing stones from glass houses. But it was the way he said it, Will. There was no mistaking who he meant.”

“What happened then?”

“Campbell turned red as a beet, he looked like a trout as it flops about on land, his mouth opening and closing. He wished us a good day and was on his way. It was sublime.”

“So, I am a coward, then?”

“You’ve missed the point entirely.”

“Am I, Grace? Do you think I am?”

“No, Will. No more than the next man. But you are an idiot.”

“I despise what we do, Nell.”

“I’d be worried if you liked it.”

“They make it sound like it’s so heroic. Like I should be proud. Maybe cowards have the right of it.”

“You’re not a coward. Daid says there’s no such thing as a coward in war.”

He remained quiet, staring up into the darkness of the ceiling again. What shapes he saw there she feared to ask.

“Was it very bad?

“What?”

“Campbell’s face?”

Grace smiled, the pleasure of that memory wrapping around her. “The worst.”

“He’s a tosser; he looks at you wrong.”

“That’s a bit unfair. He’s very fatherly towards me.”

“As a man—”

“You’re hardly an authority on that.”

“—As a man, take my advice on this. Campbell’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“Daid likes him well enough.”

“Enough to drink with at the public house. But he’s never brought him here for dinner and I know for a fact he doesn’t like to bring him round you.”

“What? He told you that?”

“Men’s talk.”

“Oh, do shut up.”

“I’m telling you, he’s a tosser.”

“Inspector Campbell’s not the blackguard you’re making him out to be. He’s a perfect gentleman.”

“There are all sorts of gentleman, Grace. He’s the sort to be avoided. He looks at you like a dockworker eyes a bit of skirt.”

“Wouldn’t that make him a wanker, then, instead of a tosser?”

William chocked on his laugh, hacking away into his palm, his breathless coughs sounding explosive in the silence of the sleeping house. Wheezily, and with a raspy voice, he replied: “Grace Helen Burgess, that’s not ladylike in the least. What would Campbell say if he heard you speaking like that? You’d break his little fantasy.”

“I’d tell him Grace Helen Burgess is only a lady when required.”

“Good, ladies are no fun.”

“Ladies are a great deal of fun—”

“My apologies.”

“—We’re far naughtier than society pretends.”

“You’d have no trouble in the army. Britannia is losing out.”

“It is. Half the population uselessly knitting at home.”

“Imagine it: the Burgess siblings—brother and sister, inseparable since they were wee tots—crawling through No Man’s Land to drop ticklers into the Jerry’s dugout.”

“You’re thinking too small. We’d aim for the Kaiser.”

“With Sean leading the cavalry behind us?

“No, not Sean. He’d lead the cavalry into a biergarten”

“Uncle Conner?”

“Yes, he’d come through.”

“That is a picture.”

For a long time they were silent, listening to the nighttime sounds from the open window: trees rustling in the wind, owls calling from their branches, the house shaking off the heat of the sun with sighs and groans—harmless, peaceful sounds; sounds of their childhood, of carefree slumber, of comfort.

“I wish I could go with you, Will.”

“So do I.”

That gentle silence rose between them again, until he broke it once more.

“But I’m glad you can’t.”

He gripped her hand, then wedged himself under the sheltering bower of her arms and curled into her like a child hiding from the world.

Six years after the war, as the church bells tolled eleven o’clock, Grace remembered her brother, who hadn’t died in the war, but who lost some essential part of himself to it. Perhaps in Marne or in the trenches thereafter. When she sorted through her memories of him, when she brought to mind the experiences they’d shared, it became apparent to her that each passing year would whittle away some aspect of the tableau. Small things initially, the inconsequential placement of his freckles or the way his hair gleamed in the sunlight. Then, one year, she tried to recall his voice and found, to her amazement, that she could not. Something so unique and essential to him, something she thought impossible to forget, was gone. Worse yet, there was no way of recovering it. That was the thing with loss, there were always new things to grieve: imagined futures, forgotten pasts, shared histories. It grieved her especially that with the loss of her father, there was no one else who could remember William at his truest, nor was there anyone to remember the experiences they’d shared. The burden was hers alone and even the happiest of memories felt lackluster, because recounting them to others could never elicit the same response as it did when one recalled a story in the company of the people who lived it.

These heavy thoughts rippled across the surface of her mind like waves rolling across the shoreline, ebbing in and out, turning over themselves in an interminable, haphazard pattern. They kept her company as she stood next to Thomas on a raised platform. They were in Small Heath, in a cobbled square. There was a cold bite to the still, morning air, like the memory of frost or the suggestion of it, a promise that within the coming weeks there would be diamond dust shaken from the quivering limbs of leafless trees.

Beside her were Arthur, Linda, and John—Esme having stayed home with her feverish baby. There was a crowd before the platform, in which Charlie waited, sitting within the arms of Constance, his nurse.  
Two years ago, the Shelby’s had donated an impressive marble obelisk to Small Heath and built the square it now stood in. It was the first and only memorial in the impoverished neighborhood to commemorate its dead. On a bronze plaque, in careful print, were inscribed the names of those local boys and men who’d fallen in the war.

A vicar now read these names from sheets of foolscap. At the first sound of the bells, those gathered before the memorial bowed their heads. They were joined by the residents of Birmingham, who stepped slowly from their offices or factories to observe together, under the same dim sky.

For two minutes, a deadly silence descended. The vicar waited a breath, then kept on through the list of names. The only sounds were his level voice, the wind whistling through alleyways, laundry rustling on the line, engines idling on the road, a baby crying from the crowd, and a raven, hidden in some rafter, croaking lowly. The overcast sky stared down at a still, motionless world. In that loaded silence, the names were like a requiem.

_Private William Edward Castle, 25th December 1915, aged 20;_

_Private John Charles Pockett, 23rd July 1916, aged 32;_

_Rifleman William Venville, 8th September 1915, aged 22._

On it went, in a seemingly interminable litany; a long list of men whose lives were cut short and then reduced to three, perfunctory facts. Dust to dust—it was a fate no one could escape, but it did not comfort her to know that her brother, her father, and indeed she herself, would one day be nothing more than etchings on a marker, and some day beyond that, nothing at all.

Grace wrapped her hand around Tommy’s. In reply, his fingers pressed firmly into her gloved palm. Pinned to the lapels of their coats, they each wore a red Flanders’ poppy, purchased from the Royal British Legion. John, Arthur, and Linda wore one as well, as did the Lord Mayor.

A cold wind wrapped around the bare skin of her neck, wove itself under her skirts, and sunk beneath her thin stockings. At either end of the raised platform, the regimental colours snapped crisply, tugged violently by the abrupt gust. Her coat flew out behind her. Dust blew into their faces, pelting them with tiny, miscellaneous debris. The vicar stumbled, closing his eyes. When the wind abated, he continued on, and in doing so, elicited from a woman in the crowd a terrible sound. Grace looked to her from beneath the brim of her hat. The muffled wail had broken free through the gates of her trembling hands. She was a weatherworn woman, wearing an off-the-rack dress of rough wool with frayed seams and grey, leather gloves. Tears caught in the crevices of her face, etching a path along her skin like a river meandering through the twists of a canyon. Grace followed the course of those tears, their slow fall from her wobbling chin to a wrinkled lace collar, where they soaked into the fabric, disappearing with nothing more than a dark pinprick. A child, only a child could cause that sort of grief. Grace cast her glance to Charlie, held securely by the strong, Rubenesque figure of Constance. His cheek rested against her breastbone, his eyes closed in light slumber, which Constance encouraged through a gentle, side-to-side rocking.

It was beyond her comprehension, the thought of losing him. How did that woman go on? How did she find the strength to stand in the crowd when surely she must feel like her bones were made of glass, their broken edges grinding against the inside of her skin? Grace shuddered. She began to listen again to the vicar, for it was easier to hear the names of the dead, with all their implications, than imagine outliving her child.

Somewhere above them, the solitary raven in its hidden rafter was joined by a companion. Their loud calls competed with the vicar’s low voice, and, as he began to offer up a prayer, he was forced to speak with greater enthusiasm.

Grace glanced at those gathered on stage. She could see Arthur’s lips moving in silent prayer. Linda had both her hands clasped before her breast, though her face remained passive and unmoved. John’s head was bowed, but like Tommy, he wasn’t praying.  
She wondered where Thomas was in that moment, what he might be feeling. Was he there beside her, or was he far away, entrenched in the mud somewhere in France? Was he walking through memories of bygone places? Of friends and brothers who would remain untouchable—memories stretched out before him like rows of headstones within foreign cemeteries?

Perhaps he wasn’t thinking of any of that at all. Perhaps beneath his solemn face was a mind roiling with anger at the things he’d had to endure, at the hypocrisy of these ceremonies which honored the dead whilst ex-servicemen begged on the streets and slept on doorsteps.

The vicar raised his head to the sky, releasing a grave “Amen.” This single word allowed them to raise their heads, it released them from the ceremony of observance, and indeed, as the bells from the belfry rang one final time, the clerks, warehousemen, smiths, drivers, and laborers trickled away into their respective employments. The lorries idling on the road spun forward, carriages juddered into motion under the pull of muscled horses, the sounds of hammering from the open doors of the forge commenced anew, and life, as it always was, continued.

Those gathered in the square dispersed more slowly, they lingered in small congregations, exchanging sympathies or reminiscing. Arthur and John joined a group of three veterans, John taking Charlie from Constance, who, no matter how hardy she appeared, had grown weary of carrying him. Charlie remained none the wiser as to who held him, indeed, he hardly stirred, setting his head upon his uncle’s shoulder. He showed no signs of waking as the men exchanged old war tales, their voices rising the longer they spoke. At her husband’s side, Linda remained apparently demure, Arthur smiling nervously at her whenever the men cursed. She looked as sour as a blueberry picked too soon from the vine.

Charlie wrinkled his face at a particularly loud outburst, to which John shushed him gently and rocked him. Watching them together, one might mistake John for a soft man.

“He’s very good with him.” Grace said.

Thomas looked at his brother. “He’s his share of experience.”

“That’s a bit of an understatement. Esme might help him start a cricket team.”

Grace pulled her gaze away from Charlie, to sweep casually over the crowd. Her eyes landed on the weatherworn woman, who until that moment had continued to pray. She crossed herself, then walked with lowered head, her face hidden beneath the brim of her black cloche. Winding through the stragglers, she was approached by a man at the perimeter of the square. They clasped arms, and then he caught her in a hard embrace, the sort that wrinkled coats and enveloped the receiver.

“She lost all her children in the war.”

Tommy’s words sunk into her with the weight of an anvil.

“All of them?”

“Four sons and one daughter. The girl volunteered in the Red Cross, died of malaria in the African Campaign.

“God have mercy.”

“Didn't show much mercy to her.”

No, she supposed he didn’t.

“Her husband?”

“Disappeared after the girl passed. Probably walked himself into the Cut.”

Their grim conversation was interrupted by the approach of the Lord Mayor, a short man with a large gut, sagging skin, and an empty, but well-meaning head.

“Mr. and Mrs. Shelby!”

This was the beginning of a shallow, though benevolent exchange of pleasantries. At her side, Tommy kept his answers short. He wasn’t curt, per say. Indeed, he even made jokes; but his smile was a wire hanger bent out of shape and he kept looking away, at the ground, the lane, the terrace houses, his brothers, the sky. He smoked cigarette after cigarette. It wasn’t an easy day for most veterans; she knew his mood would shift sporadically for the whole of it, like a bit of flotsam tossed about in the sea, bobbing back and forth. She thanked God the Lord Mayor wasn’t a particularly difficult or inflammatory figure.

“Will you come to luncheon, Mr. and Mrs. Shelby?”

She gazed at Tommy, taking in his expression: he sported a narrow, thin smile and his posture was rigidly straight.

Turning to Mr. Aainsley, smiling demurely, her words like drops of cloying honey, she interceded. “I’ve been feeling poorly this week. Terrible fevers and chills. Do you think your wife would understand?”

The Lord Mayor took the tiniest of steps back, caught himself, and then tilted forward as if to make up for the increased distance. “Oh yes, my dear. Absolutely. Absolutely!” His jowls shook as he nodded his head too enthusiastically.

“Do you think it might be the influenza?”

“Oh, no. Nothing as serious as that. Just a cold, likely from my husband’s nephew.”

“Nevertheless, one must take care. Such a terrible thing all those deaths after the war. I’m a survivor myself, you know.”

Yes, she did know. Most of Birmingham knew. Ever since his narrow escape Aainsley would crawl out of his skin at the meekest of sneezes or sniffles.

“I’m very grateful indeed for your thoughtfulness. If more people understood that politeness is no excuse for spreading disease, we’d have been in a much better state!”

Grace thanked him and they took their leave, making their way to the Sunbeam, which was the first in a line of four, polished vehicles tucked into a side-street. Darwin, their chauffer, waited for them on the curb.

Grace let Tommy go on ahead of her, stopping to tell Constance they were leaving.

“I’ll follow in the other car, Mrs. Shelby. I’ll just give Mr. John a moment to tie things up before I interrupt him.”

“That’s alright, Constance. As long as you and Charlie don’t stay in the square on your own.”

“Naturally, Mrs. Shelby. We’ll be safe as ever in the company of Charlie’s uncles.”

Grace continued on to the Sunbeam. Tommy and Darwin were both waiting for her.

Taking Tommy’s offered hand, she ducked into the cabin, sweeping her coat beneath her and keeping it from dragging on the muddy ground.

Once Darwin shut the door, Tommy dropped his head against the seat. Like a bit of starched fabric steamed and washed, his shoulders loosened. He shed the skin of the politician he was fast becoming, leaving behind the naked, tired flesh of a man.

They felt the engine roar to life, its reverberations traveled through the Sunbeam’s chassis and through them. When Darwin closed the partition, when he was focused on the road, no longer asking them if they needed extra rugs or if they were comfortable, Grace touched Tommy’s face, sweeping her thumbs over his cheeks.

“What are you doing?”

“Smoothing out the lines from that Glasgow smile.”

Giving a quiet bark of laughter, he caught one of her hands and and kissed it absently.

“That bad, was it?”

“Only to those who know you.”

“And you know me?”

Grace held his gaze as the juddering cobbles gave way to a dry, dirt path. “Yes, Tommy, I do.”

They shared the memory of that rainy night, when he’d said those words to her; when he meant them with every honest part of himself.

She turned her stare away; straightened the poppy on the lapel of his coat. “You know, in Ireland, some of the men have taken to hiding razor blades in their poppies.”

“The Peaky Poppies?”

“That wasn’t half as clever as you think it was.”

“But I’m an unusually clever man, so my half as clever is above average.”

“Pride goeth before destruction.”

“If you’d quoted more scripture in 1919, I might have believed you were Catholic.”

“I’m not a particularly good Protestant, much less a Catholic.”

“And that is why you should always know your limits.”

She gave him a hard look, which he took in from his tired perch, face tipped towards her.

“Words to live by, Thomas Shelby.”

Closing his eyes, he turned his head towards the upholstered ceiling of the Sunbeam.

“Not today, eh, Grace?

Sighing, she settled against him. “No, not today.”

Through the frame of the windshield, with Darwin’s shadowed head in the foreground, she watched the road disappear before them in a long, winding spool of thread.

“This morning at Trinity College they unveiled a memorial for the 16th Division.”

“Oh?”

“It was my brother’s division.”

“He wasn't cavalry?”

“No, much to my Uncle’s horror. He chose Trinity over the academy. Or he would have if he’d had the time. He never made it to enrollment.”

Grace smoothed her skirt, pushing out the wrinkles gathered in the superfine wool. She picked at some grey lint, dropping it to the floor of the car.

“You don’t talk about him,” Thomas said.

“You don’t talk about it at all.”

The glass shutting them away from Darwin offered a modicum of privacy, but nevertheless, they spoke softly, as if they were mourners before a freshly tilled grave.

“Ever since they let us back,” Thomas confessed, “all I’ve wanted to do is forget it.” His gaze remained focused on the landscape beyond the windshield, or perhaps he was looking at something much further away.

“You’ll never forget it, Tommy.”

Outside the windows, on either side of them, the trees whirled by in ribbons of brown and evergreen, like a painting of impatient brushstrokes. There was only the loud sound of the engine and the tires rolling along the ground, crushing small pebbles, snapping twigs, clattering into potholes, jostling their bodies in short jolts or rocking them gently.

“When I’m with you and Charlie…it makes it tolerable. I can carry on, knowing I have you both.”

“I want you to carry on regardless, Tommy.”

His response was a deep, throaty hum, vague and quiet. He grasped her hand from her lap. Both of them wore gloves, but she could feel the warmth of his skin and the weight of his touch. A soft smile eased over his face as he stared at their clasped hands. He laced their fingers together, holding onto her as he turned to watch the countryside bring them closer to home.

“I wasn’t sure you were serious until you called this morning.”

“When have I ever made jokes with you?” Polly’s smile had edges sharp enough to cut glass, but they turned soft as lamb’s wool when she took Charlie from her arms.

“Hello, my darling boy.” She pecked both his cheeks, even as he gripped her short hair in his fists. Her tongue clicked against her teeth in a _tsk-tsk_ sound. “None of that, now. Aunt Polly needs all her hair right where it is. Besides,” she ran her fingers through his silken locks, ruffling them to elicit a giggle, “you have plenty of your own.”

Grace removed her cloche, adjusting her short bob. Without the pomade to secure the water waves, her curls were soft and voluminous. Thomas preferred it this way because he could run his hands through it. They had been in bed one morning, Charlie was less than a year old, when he told her.

It was the time in-between, after the stars in their inky sky were chased away by dawn, but before the world stirred awake. They were still warm beneath the covers, tucked against each other like matching pieces. She was curled around Charlie, who they’d brought in from the nursery after a bout of crying. His perfect round face and compact body fit into the space between them, covered by the blanket from his cot. She ran her finger across his velvet cheek, marveling at his soft, smooth skin.  
Tommy’s arm was draped over her shoulder, his hand resting on her head, where he ran his fingers through her hair.

“I wish I’d known you before.”

“Before when?”

Their voices were softer than snowfall on a windless day, to let the baby sleep.

“Before everything. Before the war. Before your father. Before the world changed us.” He wrapped a curl of her hair around his finger. “Before you cut your hair.”

Grace laughed quietly, “my hair was a nightmare.”

“Oh? Let’s have it then.”

“It was unbearably long. Our housekeeper wouldn’t let me cut it.”

“I can’t imagine you, stubborn as you are, allowing that.”

“Mallory was practically a mother to me,” she said, remembering the day when she’d cut away her hair, just weeks before coming to Birmingham. The golden locks had drifted to the ground like wisps of corn silk—golden dreams and golden summers sheared away. Closing the door on those thoughts, she added lightly: “My hair was unruly—it took hours to tame.”

“But so much more to hang onto,” Thomas remarked, leaning over her to whisper into her ear, “when we’re alone.”

The words fell warm and damp against her; gooseflesh pebbled her skin. She shivered with a thrill of pleasure.

“Did you forget your son is sleeping between us?”

“Did you forget I’m from the dirty city of Birmingham? Where families sleep ten to a room and a babe too young to crawl is too young to care?”

Mindful of Charlie, she shoved him playfully, pushing on his shoulder, unable to hold back her outraged laugh. 

He gripped her thigh, but then released it, settling his head back into his pillow.

Through the open shutters, the sun rose higher into the rose-tinged sky. The first fingers of warm light stretched over the floorboards, climbing over the bed and the curves of their bodies.

“You don’t mean it, you know, about meeting me before.”

“Don’t I?”

“Would you give up your time with Greta, just to meet me earlier?

His hand continued to stroke her hair, but he remained quiet, his face upturned towards the ceiling, his eyes far off.

She knew the answer he would give if he spoke. But it didn’t bother her that some poor girl loved him in 1916, or that he loved her. Loving Thomas was a feeling she understood all too well.

Dust motes floated over them in the gathering light, like fireflies flickering over the grass at night. The room, filled with the silence of quietude, made space for the baby’s sigh; it was a sweet sound, a sound of sleepy satisfaction and perfect contentment.

“Without all those years between us, Charlie wouldn’t exist.”

“Charlie was always meant to be ours. I know that like I know the river will swell in spring and the leaves will turn in autumn.”

“Probability, Tommy, just probability.”

Turning onto his side to face her, he propped his head on one hand, looking down on her. “Some things are meant to be.”

Grace grew silent. She tucked her index finger into his palm, watching as his tiny fingers curled over it. His nails were as small as seedling pearls, his fist no larger than the closed bud of a rose, ready to bloom.

“Whatever it was,” she whispered, “I’m glad for it. So glad.”

Thomas touched the baby’s hand, where it held her. “It hurts, doesn’t it? To love him so much.”

“Oh, yes.” Her words fell in a single, tremulous breath, pulled from deep within her chest.

He dropped a kiss over the crown of her head, pressing his face into her hair. “Leaves me fucking breathless.”

They remained tangled together until the sun grew hot against their covered skin, Thomas made to get out of bed, but she hooked her ankle over his leg and held his arm.

“Stay.”

Prying her hand away, he pinned it softly against her chest, half rising to hover over her, careful of the baby.

“I’ve got a busy day, Grace.”

She met his stare. His eyes were soft, the corners upturned from the smile curling his lips. Outside, the blackbirds began to sing in sweet, lilting trills, their voices rising and falling. She could almost feel the wind rustling through the leaves. “You hear that?

They’ll never sing that same song again.”

“Is the chef baking blackbird pie?”

With a laugh, she pushed on his shoulder. “Don’t ruin it.”

“Very well, go on then.”

Grace took his face in her hands and said as seriously as she could muster, “You can’t get this moment back, Tommy.” But a smile was breaking over her face. She felt like she was soaring through the rosy sky, cutting through clouds painted by the early morning light.

He ran his thumb through the hair at her temple. “Leave your hair like this, none of those stiff curls. I can’t run my hands through it.”

“It’s very fashionable.”

“I look forward to the day when fashion calls for longer, softer hair,” he said, leaning down to kiss her, “so I can get a proper grip.”

“We were speaking of very serious matters, you know.”

“A proper grip is a very serious matter.”

“The blackbirds, Thomas!”

“Yes, the blackbirds. I’m sorry to say I’ll be missing their latest performance.”

“Mrs. Shelby, may I take your hat?”

Grace blinked and looked at Polly’s maid. Smoothing her hair, she extended the cloche. “Thank you.”

“Come on, then,” Polly said, leading her into the sitting room.

This was only the second time she’d been in the house, and she cast her gaze over the room curiously. From Polly’s shoulder, she spotted Charlie doing the same, his wide eyes darting from object to object.

The sitting room they were in was dark, with heavy furnishings and fabrics that sucked the light from the windows. A fainting couch took prominence before the fireplace, upholstered in a creamy brocade. Behind it was a polished wooden cabinet, with glass doors showcasing crystal ornaments and vases. More knickknacks topped the elaborately carved cherry mantel, which bore a soaring, red glass sculpture reflected in the mirror behind it.

There were lamps already lit, even at four in the afternoon, to illuminate the lightless space. Like Polly, it was a self-assured room, unapologetic in its strength and clinging to the past.

“Shall I ring for tea?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Before the sofa was an oval mahogany table with a glass bowl at its center and a brass bell set over a crochet doily. This Polly rang with casual ceremony, as if she were accustomed to using it, but Grace could tell from the long pause where she remained standing, waiting for the maid to answer, that it was still a discomforting practice.

Charlie helped Polly save face by trying to snatch the bell from her hands. “Aren’t you a curious thing?” His hand wrapped around the brass hood, gripping it tightly and insistently until Polly allowed him to have it.

“Ah, a musician,” Polly exclaimed over the racket of the bell. “Tommy will be thrilled.”

Grace stood from the plush sofa, just as the maid rushed in, hands still wet from whatever she’d been doing, and sporting a frown below her ruddy cheeks.

Her temper seemed to lighten when she saw it was the baby ringing.

As Polly ordered them tea, Grace took Charlie from her. From him she took the bell, hiding it behind the numerous sofa cushions and bouncing him lightly—to distract him from the good cry he was threatening. She blew kisses against his neck, spinning them in half circles. He smelled of baby powder, of warm, clean, new things. His peals of laughter were pure and carried no pretense or hidden motive. Pinpricks of pain pricked her heart, because she could not still him in this moment. This smell, this warmth that she could carry within her arms and lay against her breast—those sweet, breathless laughs—she could not hold onto them. With each passing day, they slipped further away from her grasp, like water through a sieve. She thought of what the future held for him, of dark meetings in secret places, of guns holstered beneath his jackets, of Tommy, grey but unbent at his side, and she shivered.

“Dark thoughts?”

Polly was staring at her, from an armchair she’d dropped into, a cigarillo suspended from the fingers of one hand. “You had this look.” She waved her arm a little, to indicate her own face.

Grace set Charlie down next to her on the fainting couch, holding onto his waist. “I’m sorry for having brought him today, his nurse was ill and Mary went down into the village.”

“Charlie will always be welcomed here.”

She sighed, “Right.”

Polly continued to smoke her cigarette as Grace cast her eyes into the living room, and beyond it, to the shafts of light through the window.

“Are we going to sit here in silence?” Polly asked.

“I’m waiting for the maid to—”

A knock on the door, followed by the very maid pushing it open, bearing a silver tray stacked with a porcelain teapot edged in gold, its matching cups with their saucers, a small pitcher and sugar bowl, and a short vase, with a single, red rose. The maid deposited her burden over the oval coffee table between the sofa where Grace sat and the armchair Polly occupied. She set the cups out, the linen napkins, poured their tea, and then was gone.

Charlie, having finished his exploration of the sofa cushions, struggled against her hold, intent on investigating the floor.

“You can set him down. I run a clean house.” Polly poured milk into her cup, adding one lump of sugar.

“I never thought otherwise.”

“I’m sure.”

Grace helped Charlie reach the ground, letting him crawl to the limits of the rug, where the fringed edge held him in thrall.

“I need your help, with Tommy. When it comes to the business, he listens to you.”

“I didn’t know you thought so highly of me.”

“Let’s not do this. Let’s not throw barbs when you know the reason I’m here.”

“And what’s that?”

“Tommy. Charlie. Michael. They are the reasons we’re here.”

Polly leaned into the backrest of her chair, staring at her. Only the smoke from her cigarette moved between them. Charlie, at the edges of their awareness, played quietly with the ornaments of the rug.

“I never wanted Michael involved in any of this. I never wanted Tommy in it, either. But he was born from the grit of Birmingham. The world you want to pull him out of is the world that made him.”

“That’s the thing. I don’t want to pull him out of that world. I take no issue with Tommy’s more questionable businesses. He makes his money plying poor fools with false dreams or with drink and drugs. Others make their fortunes on the backs of slaves and illiterate natives. Comparatively, I think Thomas might have the lesser sin.”

Grace wondered whether this would have shocked her father. He was a man entrusted with upholding the law, but she inherited her cynicism from him. In any case, it wasn’t a question she would ever get the chance to ask him.

Between them, forgotten on the coffee table, sat their teacups. Weak wisps of steam rose from their edges unnoticed, the tea cooling and the milk curdling over the surface of the water.

Polly watched her through the smoke of her cigarette. She had tipped her head to one side, considering her.

“I’ll admit, you’ve surprised me.” Leaning forward, she tapped some ash into a bronze tray. “What is it you hope to accomplish, exactly?”

“Thomas wants a legitimate company, one that has the same power and influence within parliament that he now has over Birmingham. I want to get him there, away from the rest of it.”

“I thought you took no issue with the dirty business.” She said it with that vixen’s smile, as if she were glad to have caught her in the lie, to prove that she was exactly who she believed her to be.

“I don’t. I take issue with the risk it puts him in.”

“He’s always taken risks. It’s why you live in a mansion.”

“I know you can’t think this business with the Russians is wise.”

Polly didn’t reply.

“I want to untangle him from things like that. From Churchill, the Russians, the Economic League. I want him to focus on the business he’s built, the one that put you in this lovely house.”

“Thomas is the only one who can want that, really want it, not just say it offhand.”

“It doesn’t hurt to give him a push. And if he wants to play chess at politics, he can do it from Parliament.”

Reaching for her teacup, Polly looked down into it. She stirred the curdled surface with a small, silver spoon. Wrinkling her nose, she set it back down upon the table.

“The milk has turned.”

Grace replied politely, waiting. They watched the baby play. He was making an effort to strip the carpet of its tassels. Through the windows, the daylight was beginning to waver. Long shadows stretched into the room.

“This crusade you’re waging,” Polly said, breaking the silence, “I’ve already fought it. He’s told you about Greta, yes?” Polly took a new cigarette from her silver case, lighting it.

Charlie gave a loud, vocal cry as the chair he’d been trying to crawl into frustrated his best efforts. Grace looked to him, to make sure there wasn’t anything within reach of his oftentimes destructive curiosity. She answered as she watched him. “Yes, he has.”

“Greta came from a good family, a hardworking lot. I encouraged their attraction, turned a blind eye when he snuck away to see her, even helped him manage it, because that girl would have pulled the razor blade out of his cap. And I wanted that for him. As you can see—” she spread both hands out, palms upturned, indicating the room they were in “—it’s not something I managed.”

Grace stood to pick Charlie up, who had crawled too close to a pedestal table over which sat a heavy, crystal vase.

Polly took a drag of her cigarette, turning her chin up as she released the smoke from her lungs. “There are days when I think it wouldn’t have made a difference, him having married her. Some people have a destiny written into them, deep in the very marrow of their bones.”

“Destiny is what we make of it. We shape our futures, as Tommy is surely shaping his.”

“But you feel something, something that’s frightened you."

Looking away from her penetrating stare, Grace wrapped her other arm around Charlie’s small back, holding onto him more tightly. “I’ve felt it for a long time now, ever since I realized that, to Tommy, nothing he’s achieved is good enough. There’s always something he’s looking to on the horizon, just out of reach.”

“Why do you think he’s made it so far?”

“Help me temper that ambition. That’s all I ask.”

Polly smiled around her cigarette. “Sweetheart, that’s like asking me to turn water into wine.”

“Then we’ll grow a vineyard.”

“You’ll have a hard time cultivating the land. Thomas pretends to want out of this, but he lives on it; he searches out the maddest schemes he can manage like a terrier after a rat—always another one ‘round the corner. It keeps him occupied; keeps him from having the time to think.” She leaned forward in her seat, crossing her arms at the wrist; her thin, delicate hands fell over her knees. “I’ll be your ally in this, for whatever good it will do, but take a bit of advice from Aunt Polly: what Thomas wants isn’t legitimacy, it isn’t power or wealth or even absolution. What he wants—the only thing he’s wanted since that fucking war—is oblivion. Unless you can cure him of that, then nothing you do will make a difference.”

It was dark in the study. The bay window behind her cast the faint light of the lamps into the inky night. She’d turned them on just after five, when the sun still lingered in a saffron sky. If she were to look, the view outside would reveal nothing but a moonless landscape, the land rolling away into the unseen horizon, like bolts of black fabric in a lightless cellar. The words on the page blurred at the edges, coming into and out of focus.

The leather seat she occupied, quite comfortable earlier in the day, felt like the hard saddle of a horse and she could no longer find a way to hold her neck without electrifying shocks pulsing through the stiff muscles. She rolled her head on her shoulders—to feel the satisfying cracks of her vertebrae decompressing, releasing the tension of hours spent bent over letters, blueprints, schematics, requests, itineraries, orders, and legal documents from their lawyers. Clive often told her men weren’t meant to sit at a desk for untold hours. He would come home from the bank, hunched like an old man, begging her for some aspirin and throwing himself flat on the floor to straighten his back.

She shook those thoughts away, turning her gaze from the bookshelves to the desk. The foundation had reached a point where every day revealed new problems to be solved or else new tasks to be completed. The house they’d purchased for the orphanage needed a new broiler, the radiators had to be updated; the second floor would need to be fitted with plumbing and electricity. As of yet, she hadn’t even begun to make inquiries as to who exactly would administer the children’s care. What had begun as a vague notion born from Tommy’s politicking was becoming a project that devoured entire days. The children taken in by the Shelby Foundation would be made or broken by it. Children like her Charlie; children who fifty years ago would not have been accepted into homes, who even today might not be accepted, as her visit to St. John’s demonstrated.

Grace recalled that visit, months before her wedding, when the clouds in the sky had gathered overhead like lumps of coal, dark and heavy.

The exterior of St. John’s Home for Boys faced a verdant park, one of the few available within the limits of Small Heath. The building was a two-story cottage, whitewashed, with four windows flanking the single door, and a shingled roof. A brick wall, waist-high, enclosed the structure and hemmed in the front garden—a patch of withered grass shot through with hardy weeds. There weren’t any flowers or ivy to soften the stark face of the building, nor was the path leading to the door graveled or paved.

Her chauffer, Darwin, held aloft an umbrella for her as she maneuvered the muddy puddles leading up to the front door. His woolen great coat gaped open as he stooped to keep her sheltered beneath the oiled canopy. Because of this, she caught glimpses of the gun holstered beneath his suit jacket. Darwin had at one point been an unemployed veteran from Tommy’s unit, a fellow clay-kicker. Her bad luck years ago, on that fateful day she spent wandering the gardens without direction, was his good fortune.

“You can take refuge in the car, Darwin,” she said as they approached the open front door.

“I’ll wait in the hall, Mrs. Macmillan.”

“It may be a long wait.”

“All the same, ma’am.”

She smiled, having become used to him.

As they crossed the threshold, shaking the rain from their shoes and coats, a priest materialized from the shadows of the hall. His closely-cropped brown hair framed a milky face with large, green eyes.

“Mrs. Macmillan,” he said through a gap-toothed smile, “welcome to St. John’s.”

“Thank you. Father Carmichael, I presume?”

“Yes, yes, the very one.”

“Thank you for receiving me.”

They left Darwin behind in the hall, with promises of tea, and she was escorted past the gallery to see the schoolroom.

The small, dark room housed 15 boys, grouped by ages from ten to fourteen, crammed closely together at mismatched desks. The children wore the same uniform of threadbare, grey flannel. They turned their eyes in discreet groups of ones or twos from the priest at the chalkboard, to her in the doorway. The skin she could see peaking from collars or cuffs, was streaked with dirt. One boy, of ten or eleven, had mucus crusted below his nostril. He offered her the thinnest of smiles, looking away nervously.

A hand tightened over her heart as a picture began to take form in her thoughts. She heard, as if from a distance, Father Carmichael whispering quietly beside her.

“The children rise at six, clean, pray, break their fast by eight, and then come here for morning classes at nine.” The door closed, sealing in those threadbare faces.

Grace followed the priest, only half listening to him. Her mind remained behind in that schoolroom, sweeping from face to face.

“After that there is more work, particularly to train them for employment, evening prayers, supper at nine, and then bed by ten.”

Grace asked “When do they play?”

“Pardon?”

She looked at the priest, who had turned his head over his shoulder, still leading her on to the dormitories.

“When do they play?”

“We allow one hour of exercise in the park across the road.”

“Daily?”

Father Carmichael laughed. “Once a week, Mrs. Macmillan. I daresay that’s enough for the rascals. They come back twice as unruly for it.”

Grace remained silent, observing the hallway, with its peeling paint. Overhead, water stains bloomed across the low ceiling. There was black mildew at the baseboards, sometimes crawling high up over the walls.

“When was St. John’s opened?”

“Twenty-one years ago this summer.”

It looked far older than that.

“Do you take in all boys?”

“Only Catholic children from respectable circumstances.” He said this breezily, unbothered by the implications, sweeping onto the next subject on the same breath. “Here are the sleeping quarters.”

Father Carmichael stood like a guard barring entrance. She glimpsed a windowless room with plaster walls and a warren of narrow, metal bedsteads upon which were draped thin, woolen counterpanes.

“Through there is the chapel, where the children pray twice daily. They must make confessions as well, in the Catholic tradition. And this is my office.”

She was escorted into a small, but well-appointed room. There was fresh wallpaper in a pattern of narcissus flowers, the ceiling was tiled with painted tin, and the rug beneath her heels was clean and fresh.

On the wall next to the door, hung a typed passage, framed beneath glass. She came closer to read it.

_We all feel what a powerful spring the hope of success is to energy of conduct; and, where can we look for it with more propriety? In these efforts, we lay the axe at the root of the tree, in preference to lopping off its luxuriant sprouts. We destroy the weed in its rise, rather than wait for its maturity. We crush the serpent in the egg, and do not look to a doubtful conquest, when all its strength and venom shall be employed to resist us. We seek to train the mind while it is ductile, and to form the character while it is unformed…_

She felt as if she’d swallowed a spoonful of fish oil without anything to chase down the pungent remedy, when it clung to the walls of the esophagus, trickling down slowly.

“That’s an excerpt from an obscure report. I came across it in London. It struck me as quite well-suited. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“A report, isn’t it, from The London’s Orphan Asylum?”

Father Carmichael’s eyes glittered, his thin smile expanded in shocked pleasure. “You know it!”

“My home, Arrow House, was previously owned by the Ashbrook’s. They were patrons of the Asylum and they kept several of the reports in the library.”

A knock on the open door interrupted them. They both to turned to look as the Matron stepped into the office.

“Pardon the interruption, Father Carmichael, but we’ve a problem with one of the deliveries out back.”

“It seems our interview will have to be cut short, Mrs. Macmillan, and just when it seemed to get interesting.”

Grace’s smile felt like a steel wire. “Yes.”

“If you’d like to establish a correspondence, I’d be more than happy to guide you through any questions or doubts you might have. And of course, we would welcome Mr. Shelby’s patronage.”

“Of course.”

“Can you find your way to the door?”

She responded in the affirmative, stepping out of the office. The smile dropped from her face as soon as she was turned away from the echo of his footsteps.

Darwin was exactly where she’d left him, sitting on a lone chair in the hall, just before the door. His face, usually mean-looking even during the best of his moods, was harder than granite. The scar bisecting his cheek stood out like a white line of paint on a somber canvas.

He stood at once when he saw her, but it seemed that whoever had upset him had no idea of his presence, nor her own.

Through a doorway partitioned by a faded, green velvet curtain, came two voices and the sounds of some housekeeping task.

“—lives with him in a grand house like husband and wife.”

“Ironic for a woman like that to start up a home.”

“Father says she’s a, well, you know. But she has mountains of money.”

“Money’s always a¬—”

Darwin hurried to retrieve the umbrella from the terracotta stand, opening the door loudly.

The voices stopped abruptly. Muffled laughter chased her out of that orphanage, as Darwin lifted the umbrella over her, sheltering her from the pouring rain.

Her faraway gaze stared unseeing at the study’s hearth, where a fire crackled gently. Encounters like the one she’d had at St. John’s would always pursue her, held at bay only by the strength of Tommy’s influence. She worried more for Charlie, for the understanding that would come with age. When she’d told the foundation’s board they would accept children from unmarried mothers, that they would allow the mothers to see or reclaim their children, they hadn’t known how to respond. One brave soul pointed out the difficulties that would add to fundraising, but his fear of Thomas was greater than any economic objection. That minefield of a conversation was never broached again, and the Shelby Institute would look towards the future. As to St. John’s, it did receive Shelby money, after a full investigation charged Father Carmichael with embezzlement.

Grace heard the latch of the door click open. She glanced up briefly to see Tommy. His waistcoat was undone, he wore no jacket, and he’d removed his arm garters. Even his pocket watch was gone.

She searched for the small clock on the desk. Set into a square, white face were black hands painted with radium.

“I hadn’t realized how late it was,” she said, penning down a question about the cost of electrical thermostats.

“You’ve commandeered my study.”

She continued to write, never once turning her eyes away from her flowing script. “It’s been put to good use.”

“I haven’t seen you all day.”

The curious oddity of that brought a smile to her face. “Shouldn’t it be me who says that?”

“Is this turnabout?”

At last, she looked up at him, where he stood, leaning one shoulder into the door’s open edge. “Have you missed your wife, Mr. Shelby?”

He remained quiet and motionless, all but for the tilt of his head. Then, he shut the door softly, walked towards her with one hand in the pocket of his trousers and rounded the large, wooden desk. The heavy fountain pen anchored in the cradle of her thumb he unmoored gently. He found its silver cap—forgotten beside the bronze figure of a horse—and clicked the pen shut, placing it down over the notes she’d been writing, where her last sentence still shone wetly against the paper. He stared down at her, his hand rose—

A pleasant tickle crawled up from her belly into her chest—sweet anticipation—the pause before that first touch, when the nerves of the skin seemed to become doubly aware of themselves, of the static in the air.  
—his fingers brushed against her cheek. Her eyes fell closed as he settled his palm against her jaw, tilting her face up as he leaned forward, to set a long, firm kiss against her lips.

“I have.”

“Have what?” she breathed.

His eyes gleamed with mischief. “Missed my wife.”

“You’re a dangerous man, Tommy Shelby. And all too pleased with yourself right this moment.”

He straightened, stepping up behind her to sink his hands into her shoulders. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” she hissed as he undid knots in stiff muscles. She sighed, her head falling forward, and moments later moaned softly when his fingers dug into the back of her neck. A secret smile bloomed across her face. “That feels better than anything we’ve ever done.”

His hands faltered, then continued. “Well played, Mrs. Shelby.”

She finally laughed, unable to resist.

Thomas continued to smooth away the aches of a long day. “I have work to do in here tomorrow. Will I be allowed to use my study?”

“I’m going into London to pick up some books, so yes, I will loan you the study.”

“You do have your own study, you know.”

“Yours has the best light,” she said, pulling a list of names from its hiding place beneath a pile of contracts. “And it has all the books. I did warn you not to convert the library. Besides which, I like putting you out.”

“Oh? Is that so?”

“Yes.” She set the list down before her, turning her head up to look at him with a Mona Lisa smile.

“What’s that look for?”

She liked his study for all the reasons she’d given, but also because it made her feel closer to him. On those days when they barely saw each other, sitting in his study—surrounded by his things, the smell of his cigarettes, the bronze equestrian statues on the desk-top, the leather blotter polished smooth on one side by the heel of his hand—made her feel like they were sharing the same burden, inhabiting the same, small corner of the world.

“You’re a clever man. You’ll figure it out.”

“Like the flowers?”

“Precisely.”

Leaning down, he dropped a kiss over the skin exposed by the neckline of her blouse, settling his chin on the shelf of her shoulder. His arms wrapped around her and they remained that way as he read over the papers scattered on the leather blotter.

“You have a guest list already?”

“Ages ago.” She reached a hand to it, bringing it closer, flush with the edge of the desk. “That man Lizzie stepped out with, we should invite him. It would mend fences.”

“You want to invite Angel Changretta?”

“Yes. There’s no Peaky Blinders business happening, nothing personal. It’s an opportunity.”

“The secretary of Shelby Limited can’t step out with a Changretta, Grace.”

“Then we’ll invite his father. Mrs. Changretta taught your brothers. We can smooth things over before they get out of hand again.”

His voice was soft next to her ear, but it gave not an inch of room. “No Changrettas. No business at the gala.”

“There’s always business. You taught me that. The gala, the foundation, it’s all business. If you want to step into politics, then this is your new field of battle.”

She felt his head shake slightly. “No Changrettas, Grace.”

Untangling his hands from her shoulders, she pushed the chair back to stand. “Well, then. I suppose that’s the final word on that.”

He didn’t take the bait, instead sitting in the seat she’d vacated and pulling a silver case from a pocket in his vest. Lighting a cigarette, he asked: “How did you find out about that business with Cangretta?”

“Your aunt told me.”

His brow rose slightly and he leaned back into the leather seat.

“I met with her for tea. We talked,” she said, gathering up the papers into different stacks. Polly had also told her the places Mrs. Changretta frequented. Information Grace had every intention of using.

“You met with Polly…for tea?”

“Yes.”

“You talked?”

“Yes, as I’ve just said.”

“Are you blackmailing her?”

She shot him a look, tucking a thick stack of accounts into a folder. Pushing the messy piles to the side of his desk, she took the cigarette from him.

“You’re picking up all sorts of bad habits.”

“And all of them from you.” She took a drag of the cigarette, holding the smoke in. “This problem with Changrettas. You shouldn’t have burned the restaurant, Tommy. It all could have been solved through Lizzie.”

“Lizzie is as stubborn as Polly. And you.”

“Lizzie is your employee. If she wanted Changretta, then she could walk away from her job.”

“And then what? What would Changretta have done, once he found out I fired his woman over him?”

“He would have given you ample justification to retaliate.”

Tommy took the cigarette from her fingers. “What’s done is done.”

“It doesn’t have to be. You’ve always altered the shape of the world to fit you. This, too, you can change—before it spins out of your control.”

He tilted his chin up, closing his eyes as he exhaled a long plume of smoke. “Grace, let it be. Let me have a night at home where business doesn’t jockey for space in my head. It’s already full to the brim as it is.”

“It’s only going to get worse if you don’t try to make peace.”

“Leave it, Grace.”

“Is it war you want, Thomas? Are you—”

“I said leave it.”

“You’ve made promises to me.”

“Grace—”

“I need you to keep your promises.”

When he rose abruptly, she was pushed back, forced to place a hand over the leather blotter for balance.

“Tommy!”

Without looking at her he apologized curtly, stepping around the desk and marching away from her. “Goodnight, Grace.”

At the threshold, he paused, his hand holding onto the doorknob. His back was to her when he spoke. All she could see of his face was a sliver of his profile, shadowed. “Since the moment we met, all I’ve done was keep my promises to you. Even when you didn’t deserve them.”

He didn’t say anything further, leaving her alone in the study, his words echoing in the empty space.

_**Author’s Notes:**_  
Originally, I intended to keep this story as true to the show as possible. I only ever meant to flesh Grace’s character out and give her the time needed to bring her back to life. However, I believe I’ve strayed from that plan. Though the principal events and her sad ending are still the same in this story, Grace has taken on a much more active role here and I’m adding a lot of non-canon events.

As to the long delay between postings, I do apologize. The entire Remembrance Day scene didn’t exist when I first finished the story, but I really wanted to include a scene with William. I rewrote these new scenes several times and scrapped a few different versions, trying to get it right.

Also, do forgive the horrible formatting, for some reason the system does not read my paragraph breaks and forces me to manually insert them. As you can imagine, this is a daunting task that leaves room for error. I posted this yesterday (1/12/20) and it was an absolute mess. I came back this morning to fix it (1/13/20). I'm sure I've missed a few breaks (or worse, accidentally deleted or joined paragraphs or dialogue), but, on the whole, it should be better. There are also a few spelling mistakes that I'll need to fix in the long run and...I realized that I have Tommy kiss Grace's hand way too much, so I'll go back eventually and pare that down.

_**Historical Notes:**_  
Any historical notes below are cobbled together using copy and paste, with editing for brevity and clarity.

\- The Victorians loved arrowroot. They used it in a number of recipes and believed it was a bland, easily digestible food good for invalids (Napoleon even made a joke about the Brit’s obsession with arrowroot). Though our characters aren’t Victorian, they likely continued to use arrowroot in their recipes and remedies.

\- The British army began giving leave in 1915, after realizing that the war would not last a short, few months. Some of the early battles were fought traditionally (that is to say, two armies facing off on a battlefield and charging at each other). This method led to immense casualties when paired with modern artillery. In the Battle of the Marne, which took place in 1914 to save Paris from the German invasion, over 500,000 were killed or wounded. Trench warfare began sometime thereafter in late 1915 or early 1916. Most accounts of the horrors and PTSD from the war come from the trenches. Many early accounts from 1914 and 15 paint a slightly less grim picture of the war, with morale remaining high among troops. In All Quiet on the Western Front, the narrator recalls his first leave and how much more optimistic and fresh he was. Later, after months in the trenches, he says that’s when the true horror hit.  
Grace’s brother likely wouldn’t have experienced the trenches yet, not as we tend to depict them, but I still believe it would be possible for him to feel devastated by the carnage he would have witnessed (though there was no medical term for the psychological effects of trauma, it wasn’t understood or even recognized at first).  
As an officer, which I imagine he would be given his family, he would have access to leave every few months (unlike the privates, who had leave about once per year).

\- A Verey pistol is a flare gun (named after the man who invented it).

\- Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day, was commemorated on the eleventh of November. Poppies weren’t worn in the week leading up to it, like today, but they were worn on the day of. The Royal British Legion began selling them in the early 1920’s to raise money for ex-servicemen. The poppy, as it relates to WWI, has a long and interesting history and was used widely by various organizations, from veteran’s to orphans. In Ireland, because of anti-British sentiment, it was seen as a symbol of British sympathizers and was sometimes ripped from the lapels of those who wore it. It’s said some men in Ireland took to hiding razor blades in their poppies to cut up those who tried to rip them away.

\- Foolscap refers to a kind of paper size very popular at the time in the UK (comparable to Legal paper).

\- At eleven o’clock, on November 11th, the UK would commemorate WWI and its victims through several ceremonies, but specifically through two minutes of silence. Everything would stop, trains, trams, work. Many people would step outside to share the moment together. At memorials, the names of the dead might sometimes be read aloud.

\- The three names included in this chapter belong to real people who passed in WWI and were residents of Birmingham. I use their names with the utmost respect.

\- Not everyone agreed with the ceremony of Remembrance Day. There were people and organizations who thought it was hypocritical of society to show so much care for the dead and so little regard for veterans. The treatment of ex-servicemen wasn’t great at this time and there were high unemployment rates among them. Many felt they had been used, broken, and abandoned.

\- I’m not really sure if the Sunbeam model used in the show had a glass partition. It wasn’t necessarily an impossibility, as some carriages and cars did have them at the time.

\- A Glasgow smile, also known as Glasgow grin, a Chelsea smile, or a Chelsea grin, is a serious mutilation whereby the perpetrator cuts the cheeks of the victim from mouth to ear. If the victim survives (they can bleed to death), it leaves scars that look like a grotesque smile. It originated in Glasgow, among gangs in the 1920s and 30s, then migrated to Chelsea. It’s likely not a term used in the early 1920s, but I’ve anachronistically used it here.

\- There were many kinds of bobs in the 1920s, all with their particular look and name. Water waves or finger waves described the glossy, highly styled waves popular at the time (like what Grace sported at her wedding).

\- The line where Thomas says that “it leaves him breathless” is a reference to Nick Cave’s song, Breathless, which they play during the wedding in season 3.

\- The mention of the blackbirds is a reference to the episode where Thomas says Grace would never hear that sound again (when he’s trying to work himself up into torturing the senior Changretta).

\- In early Victorian England, orphanages would not accept children born out of wedlock. They made it a point to accept only children from “respectable” circumstances. I couldn’t find out if this practice still continued in some orphanages into the 1920s (so that bit about St. John’s is totally made up). Truly I don’t know enough about the British orphanage system during this time to provide a historically accurate account. Take everything written about it as pure fiction.

\- The London’s Orphan Asylum is an actual report and that excerpt was taken from its introduction. It, along with other very interesting resources, are available online.


	8. Like a Bird into the Fog

Like a Bird into the Fog

1924

The books’ leather covers disappeared behind brown paper, each tied with a green, satin ribbon by a harried clerk who ran from one end of the counter to the other, constantly stopped by the unexpected crowd of shoppers at Hatchard’s. Grace took the wrapped books from where they’d been dropped carelessly. Their heavy weight settled in the cradle of her elbow, pressed into the shelf of her hip.

She sidestepped the split staircase, with its dark banisters and carpet runner, walking across the parquet floors to the green, painted French doors. A young man in a camel chesterfield came in off the street, pursued by a burst of cold air. He held the door open.

“Thank you,” she said, exiting onto the damp, chilly bustle of Piccadilly.

Traffic sped along in both directions, horse-drawn coaches overtaken by impatient motorists; pedestrians crossed at any opportunity, running recklessly before k-type buses; cabs idled on the curb, ready to take busy shoppers away from the Circus; flower girls, some long past the first bloom of youth, gathered at the base of the Shaftsbury Fountain, selling their flowers under the metal gaze of Anteros, who was always confused for his brother, Eros. One could smell the petrol hanging in the air, the coal from the chimneys smoking overhead, the faint manure of horses and farm animals, the crisp burst of a winter’s gust. There were also the loud sounds of pistons pumping within engine blocks, shoed hooves striking the wet pavement, clocks chiming the hour, horns warning pedestrians, and vendors raising their voices above it all to sell their wares before the sun in its overcast sky gave way to night.

Darwin waited for her in the Sunbeam, parked just on the corner of Fortnum and Mason’s. The store’s large windows showcased elaborate paper displays, with printed advertisements hung from steel rods. She passed a paperboard teapot the size of a wagon wheel, the backdrop for a selection of tins stamped with interwoven vines or patterned by stylized flowers. Wicker hampers, their insides stuffed with luxury goods, were stacked on wooden shelves in the next window. Beside one of the hampers, nestled into a yard of artfully draped gingham, sat a loaf of fruit cake, already sliced into, with its first sliver arranged on a small plate against whose ceramic lip rested a silver fork. Grace paused, observing the decorations of sugared flowers, delicate purple pansies with yellow hearts or the tender petals of spray roses.

In Ireland, on November’s Eve, some households made barmbrack, a fruit cake with its roots in old, Celtic rites. Her first memories as a child were made in late October, in the kitchen at Kinnaird House, where Mallory passed on her family’s Irish recipe. She remembered sitting atop a wooden table scored with lines and dents from years of cooking; her brother, still a babe, swaddled in a basket upon that same table, beside a tin of sugar, a sack of flour, a pile of eggs, a bowl of raisins soaked in whiskey and tea, a pitcher of fresh milk—as if he were another one of the ingredients.

From the corner of her eye she spotted Darwin in his greatcoat, drawing closer.

“Ma’am.” He doffed his cap, nodding at her parcel of books. “May I take those?”

Grace handed them over, thanking him and adjusting the collar of her coat against the cold wind. “How long has it been since you’ve had good barmbrack, Darwin?”

“Years, ma’am. Not since my gran made them when I was a boy.”

“How does a fresh cake sound, then?”

“As long as it’s not one of those English store loafs, it sounds very nice, Mrs. Shelby.”

Laughing, Grace walked with him to the Sunbeam. “No, it’ll be real barmbrack. Mary and I will be baking it today. I’ve owed it to Oisín since All Saint’s Day.”

When they arrived at Arrow House, Constance and Mary greeted her inside the threshold. Mary was carrying Charlie, who’d been dressed in a jumper, cornflower blue, like his eyes. A smile burst over his face when he saw her, and he leaned out across the distance between them, reaching out.

She removed her gloves as she walked up the stone steps, despite the cold biting into her skin, then took Charlie from Mary’s arms, kissing his red cheek. “Hello, _my treasure_.”

He threw his arms around her neck, shrieking, and she felt her heart warm in her chest, like sunlight breaking through clouds on a winter’s day.

She bounced him in the cradle of her arms, eliciting a riot of giggles which set off her own laughter.

“He’s in a sweet mood, Mrs. Shelby. He’ll settle in well to baking, today, I should think.”

“Thank you for keeping him cheerful, Constance. Will you take the train today into Birmingham?”

“Yes, I’ll be home in no time if I manage to catch the express.”

“Darwin will be glad to help with that. If you do miss the express, I’ve asked him to take you straight home.”

Constance thanked her, exchanging a perfunctory farewell. Grace and Mary watched her walk down the steps, her old-fashioned rainy daisy skirt sweeping her heels behind her. At the car, Darwin held the door open for her, helping her into the cabin. When the roar of the engine cut through the peaceful silence of Warwickshire, Grace took Charlie’s small wrist in hand, prompting him to wave.

“Say goodbye, Charlie.”

She wasn’t quite sure if he understood the objective of the gesture or the sentiment, but he seemed to find it unobjectionable in any case, and stared out at the moving car with intent, focused eyes.

As the car took a turn in the drive, disappearing from sight, Grace moved past the shelter of the entryway, into the reception room where the warmth from the radiators overpowered the cold, frigid air filtering in through the doorway. Mary followed behind her.

“Is Mr. Shelby in as fine a mood as his son?” she asked.

Mary straightened her apron. “I wouldn’t know that, Ma’am. But he is in. Working away in his study.” Here her voice pitched a little higher. “The both of you will need spectacles before long.”

Grace smiled, ignoring Mary’s well-meant nagging. “Is the kitchen ready?”

“Yes, Ma’am. I’ve set out the fruit we left soaking overnight. All the other ingredients are ready as well.”

“Thank you. Darwin left some books with Johnson. Will you have them sent to my study while I get ready?”

“Right away, Mrs. Shelby.”

“Thank you, Mary.”

Her slim figure, dressed in its usual black uniform, slipped away into the shadows of the foyer. Charlie yanked on her necklace abruptly, asserting his presence. Taking his wrist in her hand, Grace pulled it gently away from her necklace. “That is not for playing. Nor—” she began, untangling his grasping fingers from her short locks, “—is my hair. Come along,” she said, bouncing him lightly.

They ascended the stairs, the click of her heels muted by the carpet runner. In her bedroom, she set Charlie in the very center of the bed, hemming him in against the headboard by mountains of pillows.

“Will you let Mama dress without breaking free into mischief?”

He made a loud, vocal sound, his pudgy fists digging into the pillows and pushing one aside.

“A resounding no. Every bit as stubborn as your father.”

As she slipped into the dress Mary had left out for her, she kept one careful eye on him, keeping up a monologue that vacillated between narration and nonsensical sweet nothings delivered in absurd pitches to keep him laughing and entertained.

Smoothing out the skirt of an old, blush georgette dress, riddled with tiny, nearly imperceptible holes from where a moth had made its meal, she placed one knee into bed, reaching her hands out to scoop Charlie up, unsettling the fort of pillows as she swooped him high into the air. She huffed as his heavy weight settled against her breast.

“You’re getting too heavy for me. Stop growing at once,” she said to him, to which he replied by tugging on the long collar of her dress. Together, they made their way from the room, down the hall, into the more public areas of the house. 

Her study had been a lady’s sitting room at one point, the walls upholstered in powder blue damask, with creamy, silk curtains, white wainscoting, plaster ceiling, and tall, French windows facing the rose gardens. In this room, she spent most of her time when Tommy occupied his own study. 

Grace set Charlie over a soft, white rug she’d purchased just for him, upon which were scattered the messy remains of knit blankets, wooden blocks, carved horses, spinning tops, tin soldiers, and all manner of toys. Watching him through the corner of her eye, she sat at the desk, opening a drawer to pull out a plain, white note card.

For a time, her hand, holding a fountain pen, remained hovering over the surface of the paper, her gaze distant, set upon Charlie. The things she wanted to say floated through the planes of her mind, traveling down into her arm, but catching there, unable to escape her. There were too many words jostling for space, shifting shape and form, beating their wings against each other like a flock of swallows which grows and shrinks mid-flight. In the end, she could not put down all she wanted to say, and instead, her pen traveled over the smooth surface of the card in swooping letters that formed three, simple sentences:

_To my husband, who has always kept his promises to me. May this journey we’ve begun take us all our lives to complete. I love you, always._

She stared at the lines formed by the black ink, the blot where her pen had stalled, the shaking curve of a letter she took too long to form. Charlie screeched and gurgled in the background; she looked up at him. He was tumbling wooden blocks over the rug, throwing himself forward to reach them when they strayed too far.

“Mrs. Shelby?”

Grace turned her gaze to Mary, standing in the threshold of the white, painted door.

“Will you deliver these,” she said, tucking the note into a stack of three, wrapped books, “to Mr. Shelby? I’ll get us started in the kitchen.”

Mary came to take the books from her. “I’ll meet you there, Mrs. Shelby.”

“Thank you, Mary.”

Grace unwrapped her own book as Mary left, crumbling the brown paper and turning to gently toss it at Charlie, who looked up at her with a vocal protest. She laughed at his expression, going to pick him up. “Shall we go make something delicious, today? Yes?”

She kissed his cheek, carrying him in one arm, which protested his heavy weight, and carrying the book she’d unwrapped beneath the other arm, hopefully he wouldn’t take an interest in it between the study and her bedroom.

He didn’t, which was fortunate for the pristine pages of _Good-bye to All That, _a memoir of the Great War written by a British soldier. She had no intention of purchasing it that morning, having been on a mission to find the three titles her cousin recommended as foundational reading for MP’s. But Tommy so rarely spoke of his experiences during the war, and she understood so very little of it. There were still nights he woke clawing at the sheets as if they were the collapsed walls of those awful tunnels, sealing him into his grave.

Grace opened the bedside drawer on her side of the bed, tucking the book inside it. Charlie felt heavy in her arms as she leaned up and she set him a little more firmly into her hip to absorb some of his weight. 

The kitchen was an enormous warren of rooms and cellars, far from the main parts of the house. By the time she was able to set Charlie down over the large, wooden table, her arms ached from carrying him. She straightened her hair, breathing heavily.

“You really are growing too quickly.”

He looked up at her from where she’d penned him in with her torso, his round, full face turned up in defiance, one fat fist clutching her dress, the other firmly lodged itself in his mouth where he drooled merrily over it. She pulled it away, smiling as she reached for the apron Mary had left on the table. Securing it around her neck and waist, she wiped his fist with it.

Usually, the kitchens would be loud and busy, but she had chosen the quietest part of the afternoon, on the quietest day of the week, when the cook wouldn’t have her head for interrupting him. Now, the space was emptied out of its usual residents, who were enjoying their well-earned rest. In their absence, the cavernous room was still and soundless, peaceful and cool without the cook screaming orders or the stoves belching hot fire.

Grace pulled the bowl in the center of the table, covered by a tea towel, towards them. Charlie looked at it immediately, a gleam of intent coming into his eye. Grace knew he would stick his hand into the contents if allowed. Uncovering the bowl revealed a bloated cluster of dried fruits—sultanas, raisins, and orange peel, soaked in tea and whiskey. Their fragrant scent wafted up into the air as she handed Charlie the tea towel to keep his hands occupied. She tasted one of the sultanas, whose soft, bloated flesh burst on her tongue. Picking another, she offered it to a watchful Charlie. His face puckered at the strange flavors, then he licked his lips, reaching into the bowl for more. She had just enough time to stop him from sinking his fist into it.

“I see he’s already up to trouble.

She had expected Mary, but it was Tommy who stood in the doorway, in only his shirtsleeves and woolen trousers, the set he used for riding when they were alone at home.

Charlie reached for him with nearly comprehensible calls of “Da.”

“He’s like his father, always up to trouble.”

Thomas rounded the table, taking up Charlie into his arms.

“A bit more filled out at this age then I ever was,” Thomas said, hoisting him higher.

“Better fed, I’d say, than his father ever was.”

Hesitating for only a moment, studying her mood, Tommy dropped a kiss onto her head, murmuring into her hair, “Thank you for the note,” then, pulling away, he asked: “You gave me quite a bit of dry reading.”

“The goal is Parliament, isn’t it?”

“Is _Blackstone’s Annotated Commentary_ really necessary for Parliament?”

“Foundational. We have the full set in the library, but that one’s easier to understand. I’m not sure about the Maitland.”

“And the economics book?”

“There’s quite a commotion around that one. Its author believes we’ve set ourselves up for another Great War.”

He was quiet for a moment, looking at Charlie, fixing his hair. “Let’s hope he’s wrong.”

“I’ll be reading them with you,” she said, to change the subject. “And I’m thinking of hiring a tutor, for some of the finer points of British law.”

“I’m not sitting with a tutor, Grace.”

She turned to measure out the flour. “Who said anything about you?” Looking up at him through her lashes, she added, “He’ll be teaching me and I, in turn, will pass that along to you should you ever need it.”

He studied her as she cracked an egg against the wooden tabletop.

“What?”

“Nothing. You’re always surprising me, is all.”

“That’s the only way to keep your interest.”

“Oh, you always have my undivided attention.”

She knocked his hip with her own. “Hand me the butter, will you?”

He passed the crock of butter to her.

“Where’s Mary?”

“I told her to leave us be.”

Her knife sunk through the soft butter, where it scrapped against the glazed ceramic. It remained there, as she turned her gaze on him. “Is Thomas Shelby going to bake?”

“Thomas Shelby is going to spend some time with his wife and son, who he’s been missing.”

She set the butter down. “His wife has missed him, too.”

Charlie gave a loud, well-timed screech.

She laughed, adding, “And his son, as well.”

Thomas sat him on the table, looking at the ingredients strewn over the worktop.

“How many of these are you baking, exactly?”

“One for Oisín, one for Darwin, one for us, and some for the maids, with extra rings hidden inside.”

“Will you hide rings in our cake?”

“No.”

“Trying to keep me from walking down the aisle again?”

“No need to tempt fate.”

He leaned in, taking her jaw in his free hand to tilt her head up, meeting her in a hard kiss.

“No risk of that, love,” he whispered against her lips.

She closed her eyes, smiling, feeling the last of their bitter argument fade away. That terrible sensation of clouds hanging on the horizon receded, at least for that moment, while they were sheltered in the sturdy walls of Arrow House, surrounded by the quiet sounds of the kitchen, the smell of his skin, the feel of him, and Charlie, tucked between them, tugging insistently at whatever scrap of cloth or hair he could catch hold of.

They spent the rest of the hour together, Tommy mostly controlling Charlie from the mess he tried to make, and she, dusting flower onto Charlie’s nose, or secretly marking Tommy with white handprints, some in places that were wholly inappropriate.

The thought of him walking down the halls, with flour prints on his ass, placed a wicked smile upon her face, which he read for what it was.

“Perhaps I should leave you here with Charlie, to bake your dozen cakes.”

“If,” she said, enunciating carefully, “you leave me here alone with our unruly child, I will order Mary to serve nothing but plum and apple jam at breakfast for the next month. You know she’ll do it. She likes me more than she fears you.”

“Treason in my own house. What is it the Americans say, about cruel punishment?”

“Cruel and unusual,” she supplied, mixing in a generous handful of fruit to her batter.

“It’s cruel and unusual punishment of a war veteran.”

“Tinned beef, as well. I’ll tell the chef you adore it.”

“Trouble, Grace. You’re pure trouble.”

“No more than you.”

“I suppose that’s the only way you can keep me in line.”

Her hands were deep in a fresh batch of dough, the batter still sticky and stringy as she kneaded it, when he said the words. She looked up at him, trying to keep her words light, but they carried a tinge of her fears in them, despite how she smiled.

“No one can keep you in line, Tommy. Though God knows I’m trying.”

She would remember those words, weeks later, in a beautiful neoclassical hall, while she looked up into the decorative ceiling, watching it fade away, as she too, faded away, like a bird who flies into the fog.

When Grace and her brother were children, they endeavored to learn what they could of their mother. Infrequently, their father might mention some innocuous tidbit about her. The color of her hair, a favorite flower, a composition she enjoyed; small, harmless morsels of her character. Never entire stories, not from him. These they gleamed from others. Late at night, when Mallory sent them up to bed, she might tell them where their mother was born, who her family was, where she grew up. Or, they might hear about her as they hid on the second-floor landing, peering through the bannisters into the sitting room, where, through the sliding doors, they could just make out a sliver of the adults gathered together after tea and cigars.

Most valuable of all their sources was Uncle Connor, particularly after wine or spirits softened his martial demeanor and allowed them to sift greedily through his memories, like miners digging into the hard heart of the earth, searching for golden veins. This task required a series of serendipitous events, rare in their alignment.

Like all children, Grace and her brother had an innate understanding about which questions could be asked, when they could be asked, and in whose presence they who could be asked. Through a number of witnessed arguments and abrupt changes in temperament, they had learned when to mine the land and when to set aside their prospecting, which is to say they had to outwit and outwait both uncle and father. Of the first they required the proper mood and setting, of the second they required absence. When both these stars aligned, Grace and her brother took their chances.

“Did she look like me?”

“You mean do you look like her?”

“You know that’s precisely what I meant, Uncle Connor.”

“You certainly have her attitude, dove. But no, you’re too fair.”

What her uncle meant by this was that Grace wore her beauty like a coat of snow. It was cold and hard about her; pale, winter colors set into a classical face which could look angelic, but oftentimes bore an uncompromising countenance, even as a child. Perhaps this was the result of growing up under her father’s stern guidance. In contrast, her mother was as warm as the earth in the grasp of summer.

“She was pale and blonde.”

“But you said she wasn’t fair.”

“I never said such a thing.”

“You implied it.”

“Not at all.”

“You’re speaking in riddles, Uncle Connor.”

“Children, will I or will I not be finishing this story?”

“You haven’t told us what story you’re telling.”

“The very first of stories.”

“Pardon?”

“The very first time I met her.”

Grace and her brother fell silent. The three of them sat in the shade of a marque tent, whose canvas canopy trapped the heat of the afternoon. Their small, folding table was dressed in white linen, over which rested the remains of their meal—plates of soft sandwiches filled with tinned salmon or cucumber salad; slices of French cheese dotted with pebbles of greasy sweat; melting dollops of cream and strawberry jam; crumbs from a pillowy Victoria sponge; the broken remains of marzipan flowers, two teacups, stained by rings of tea; and a tall mug of beer, long since emptied. At an adjacent tent, sheltering a wooden floor, a band played a fast country reel. Women in summer whites and men in creamy flannel tapped, jumped, and danced along to the spirited tune, their gay faces flushed and sweating. A game of croquet played out elsewhere, with lacey sunshades pushed momentarily into the hands of suited companions or cast to the ground as the ladies took their turn.

All around them, the residents of Portumna celebrated the Summer Solstice, generously hosted by Uncle Connor. Grace could see her father far off in the broad shade of an oak, sitting on a lawn chair with two other gentlemen, smoking from pipes. His distance was a key factor in the development of this conversation, and she was anxious for it to reach its conclusion before he decided he’d had enough of merrymaking or before Mallory pulled them away for some proper bit of socializing. Next to her, William, wearing shorts that showed his scratched knees, took up a salmon sandwich.

“Don’t eat that. It’s been sitting out too long.”

He paused, sandwich hovering before his open mouth. Looking straight at her, he brought the sandwich closer and took an enormous, toothy bite.

Grace crossed her arms and turned to her Uncle. “You must finish the story quickly, before the salmon takes effect.”

Despite his challenge to her, William did set the sandwich aside, knocking her ankle with his own.

“Is this when father met her? No one’s ever told us about that,” he asked around bits of masticated salmon.

“Yes, that’s when he met her. We both did.” He signaled a footman to bring him more beer.

“It was a public dance, in Dublin. Her aunt was her chaperone—tiny German woman, like a dachshund. Fiercely protective of her charge. Naturally.” He added the last word as an afterthought, as if he supposed it appropriate given his young audience.

“Did she speak German?”

“Both of them did, perfectly. As both of you will, if you pay any mind to that governess.”

“What did she wear?”

“Who cares what she wore?”

“How did _Daid_ meet her?”

“Was it love at first sight, like in the stories?”

Their uncle was silent a moment, some thought flickering across the surface of his face. “I was certainly smitten. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever set eyes upon—not in the way of a painting or some other such nonsense, but I’d never been more captivated. Your father didn’t care much for her at first.”

His words were taken in with complete reverence, stored away within themselves in that place where they had built an image of her, hazy and unreal, invaluable despite its insubstantial nature, despite its inability to bring them a true understanding of the woman they called “mother.” Indeed, both Grace and her brother had created a figure that didn’t exist outside their imaginations. For though they had seen pictures of her and heard tales, their mother remained insubstantial. To them, she would never be anything they could touch or hold or know.

Grace feared, in morbid, maudlin moments, what her own memory would become if Charlie were to grow up without her. In that regard, Thomas would be like her father, an untappable font of information.

To this end, Grace began a series of letters and requested from her uncle the return of several trunks of sentimental keepsakes, stored away after she’d lost use of Kinnaird House.

“That’s a herculean task. May will have to sort through decades of miscellanea to find them.”

Except his wife wouldn’t do any of the sorting. At best, May would guide her household staff from the dusty threshold of the carriage house, where the Burgess family stored unused furniture, ugly antiquities, outdated wardrobes, tired paintings, and memorabilia dating back to Cromwell’s revolution.

“I’m very grateful to the both of you for storing them all these years. But I’ve ample room now.”

Through the telephone, she could hear her uncle ordering a maid to add more coal to the scuttle. He spoke normally to the girl, yet when he addressed her through the line, he pitched his voice as if they stood on opposite ends of a field.

“I can hear you perfectly well, Uncle Connor.”

“Was I screaming again? Can’t quite get the measure of this bloody thing.”

“The trunks, Uncle Connor?”

“Right, yes. Things are a right mess in this new house. It might be your things are still at Portumna.”

Grace set down her pen, its black, metal body neatly arranged over her absent-minded drawings of thistles and geometric patterns. She looked out into the empty hall.

“There’s nothing in them I don’t already know about.”

A short silence met her over the line; a muffled order issued to the maid, this time to leave the room.

“She kept a diary—in German. _Daid_ wouldn’t have been able to read it.”

"You never said anything.”

“What was there to say?”

“It was a complicated business.”

“Uncle Connor—"

“We were young, believed the world would bend our way.”

“Uncle Connor, there isn’t anything you need to explain.”

The line cracked with static. They heard the operator inhale too loudly, giving herself away.

Phone lines made for indiscreet confessionals.

“Will you send the trunks?”

“Yes, once May unearths them.”

“You should look through them. Keep whatever you’d like.”

“No, no. That—I—that is to say, some things are best left in the heart.”

Grace thought of the things she’d requested, with their dusty secrets, of her wedding photographs left behind in New York. “Yes, I suppose that’s wise.”

She set the receiver into its cradle, her skirt sweeping the little desk as she rose to step from the phone room.

Outside, the hall split into two paths, one of which lead straight to the dinning room, where Thomas more than likely waited.

Grace took the outer hall, lined with a bank of tall windows. Weak, afternoon sunlight filtered through them and set the air alight with golden, smoke-like strokes. She paused for a moment, captivated by the translucent haze. This brief pause served to keep her in the hall long enough to see a magpie fly onto the windowsill just ahead of her. The bird faltered on the stone ledge, seeking its balance and upon having discovered it, ruffled its stunning monochromatic coat. It combed its glistening feathers with an ebony beak, preening and grooming in the soft glow of the sun. She could see the gleam of light in its black eye, the pebbled texture of its skin, the wrinkled lines on its claw-tipped feet, and the details in its sweeping tail. A beautiful, little creature with a number of associations. No doubt Thomas would tell her it was bad luck. Such a superstitious man, her serious husband.

As she remained still and hidden to observe the lovely bird, she hummed a rhyme from her girlhood: _Magpie, magpie, chatter and flee. Turn up thy tail, and good luck fall me._

_There, Thomas, _she thought, _a bit of luck for us both. _

The luminescent hands of the clock on his desk pointed to eleven-forty. The calm stillness of midnight already hung over the house. The servants were absent, tucked into their rooms upstairs waiting for dawn; the sconces on the walls had been turned off, throwing the long hallways into darkness; the French shutters in the baby’s room were drawn shut; Arrow House slept, quiet beneath the inky sky.

Mary had remained awake until only an hour ago, coming in to offer her tea before retiring, and to scold her for ruining her eyes in the dim light of the lamps. Grace heard the sound of a car pull up into the drive. She stood from the desk, hiding herself behind the enormous curtain to glance into the night, though she knew who it would be.

Usually, Williamson would greet him, and the car would be taken to the carriage house by the coachman, but tonight, the car would remain in the drive until morning, Tommy would open his own door, put away his own gloves, and hang his own coat. 

Grace returned to the desk, to complete the instructions for the caterer. Her handwriting, a neat, cursive script with flourishes at the down stroke, turned almost childish with her impatience; blots of ink from the fountain pen and smears from her hasty right hand soiled the fine stationary. She hurried to gather the blueprints, and the acceptance from the leader of the Birmingham City Council, then rushed from the study.

He sat on the couch in the small, private sitting room. His eyes were closed, his head reclined against the backrest. Dust marked the hem of his trousers and his shirtfront was wrinkled from a long day.

"Hello,” she said, a little breathlessly from her fast march to find him.

Those startling blue eyes opened, and his head rolled on the couch to look at her. “Hello.” His voice came soft and mellow, his lips ticking up a touch.

Grace set the documents down over the coffee table, standing before him with hands clasped. “Guess.” Her enthusiasm leaked through into the single word and she couldn’t resist a grin.

A smile broke through his weariness, brought about by her obvious excitement. “Guess what?”

"He said yes.”

“Who?”

Coming round the table, she stepped between his open knees, quickly gathering the acceptance letter she’d brought with her. Kneeling, she half-turned to face him, holding it up so he could see.

“The leader of the Birmingham City Council is going to attend the dinner. Everyone’s said yes.”

“Ah.”

“Everyone. I keep having to change the catering. My writing hand is almost falling off.”

“What are you writing for? I bought you a typewriter.”

Lifting one eyebrow, she said, as if it were the most obvious thing to a man born into the poverty of Birmingham, “You don’t write letters of a social occasion on a typewriter.”

“Oh?” he drawled, “Forgive me.”

Grace unfolded the blueprints on the low table, opening them to their full size. “This is what they plan to do with the house. We’ve added an area for the children to play. Look.” She pointed at the new garden in its blue map.

He hummed an answer.

“And the Birmingham Charity Commission will grant us a license within the month.” Grace glanced over her shoulder, to see he remained reclined into the couch, his head tilted to one side, observing her through soft eyes.

“You’re not listening to me.”

“Yes, I am.”

If it hadn’t been for his obvious fondness, she might have taken offence. As it was, she tried to temper her jubilance.

“Do you think I’m becoming obsessed?”

“Yes.”

She turned to face him fully, setting her hands on his knees. “Should I ask you how your day was, like a good wife?”

Thomas shook his head, something coming into his eyes as he whispered, “No.”

Touching his hand, she said “I’m guessing that means your day was not as successful as mine?”

“Well, depends on how you measure success. See, personally, I measure it in sapphires.”

“Oh?”

He leaned forward, kissing her chin. “Turn around.”

She humored him. He dropped another kiss at the nape of her neck, his breath whispering over her skin.

“Close your eyes.”

Her head turned back to look at him.

“Close your eyes.”

With a smile, she did so, bringing her palms up to cover her face. A chain fell around her neck and a pendant, large and heavy, settled bellow her collarbone, its smooth, glassy surface was warm from his pocket.

“All right, you can open them.” His arms fell over her shoulders, lips whispering the words against her.

Her gaze fell upon a sapphire as large as any of the crystals hanging from the chandeliers in the ballroom, suspended from a simple, silver chain. A chill swept through her.

“Where the hell did you get this?” And then, to soften her words, “It’s beautiful.” She touched the heavy stone, running her fingers along its surface.

There was no answer to her first inquiry. “You can wear it to the foundation’s dinner.” His arms wrapped around her, chin resting on her shoulder.

“It’s a little much for that kind of dinner.”

“Grace, this is fucking Birmingham. Good taste is for people who can’t afford sapphires.”

She laughed, though she disagreed. Turning in his arms, she placed one knee on the couch, pulling herself up into his lap, kissing him. “Thank you.”

His hum tickled her lips, but before he could tangle a hand in her hair, she drew back. “Will you tell me? Where you got it?”

“Does it matter?”

_It does_. “You went to London, on business. You returned with a sapphire the size of Charlie’s fist. Who do we know that would pay in ostentatious jewelry?”

"Grace, I’ve had a long day, a very long day.”

“What’s happening with the Russians?”

He took her face in his hands. “Grace.”

“Promises, Tommy. Promises and promises.”

He stared at her, thumb brushing her jaw. He knew the wound he’d dealt her that night in his study still stung. “I’ll make you another promise: tomorrow, we’ll talk about this. Let’s have a quiet ending tonight.”

She sighed. Running her hands beneath his jacket, she settled against his chest. “Alright, Tommy.”

* * *

**Author’s Notes:**

Thomas Shelby bakes…we’ve truly entered the fandom now. That said, this chapter is fairly short compared to the others and a bit toothless, but I decided to divide the last two chapters into three, which is where this little interlude comes from. There will be a total of 11-12 chapters. 

**Historical Notes:**

_Any historical notes below are cobbled together using copy and paste, with editing for brevity and clarity._

\- Hatchard’s is a bookstore in Piccadilly, still open today.

\- Shaftsbury Fountain depicts the figure of Anteros, brother to Eros…but he’s usually mistaken for his more famous brother.

\- Fortnum and Mason’s is also a store located just a few steps from Hatchard’s. It’s been around for quite a long time and continues to endure. It sells all sorts of things and made little baskets of fine goodies that were very popular (not sure if this practice continues). While it’s a lovely store, the one on Piccadilly is absurdly busy with tourists.

\- Rainy daisy is a style of skirt popularized in the 1890s. It was trimmed to hang a few inches off the ground for rainy-day walking. It was also used for sport and influenced the development of shorter, trimmer skirts.

\- The books Grace purchases for Thomas are an abbreviated version of Commentaries on the Laws of England by William Blackstone, whose 18th century legal treatise is one of the most important ever written in the UK; a copy of one of the works of Frederic William Maitland, a historian and lawyer who is considered one of the modern fathers of English legal history; and The Economic Consequences of the Peace, by John Maynard Keynes, an economist who proposed the unfair treatment of Germany in the treaties of WWI would give rise to catastrophe.

\- During WWI, soldiers received plum and apple jam and tinned beef with much more regularity than other, more appealing alternatives (like strawberry jam or fresh meat). There were political cartoons which joked that if the quartermaster handed out strawberry jam, then the war effort was going well. 

\- Like anything to do with superstition, Magpies have a number of contradictory myths attached to them. In Asia, they’re generally regarded as good fortune while in Europe they are more typically associated with misfortune (likely due to a negative image in the Judeo-Christian canon). In some situations they are regarded as good luck in Europe, but there’s the superstition that a single magpie on your windowsill is a symbol that imminent death awaits someone within the household or someone associated with the household. Acknowledging the magpie, with a respectful address or an appropriate blessing or counter curse is, allegedly, meant to ward of this bad luck.


	9. You Can Never Take It Back

You Can Never Take It Back  
1924

The thing about violence is this: you can never take it back. Worse yet, it breeds in us the desire for retribution. The seed of vengeance, once sown in the fertile, bloody soil of the heart, takes root—like ivy growing over the windows and doors of a house. This vengeance begets more violence, which in turn germinates fresh vengeance. And so on and so on, one feeding the other.

Polly called her, on the morning after John cut Angel Changretta. It was the same morning she’d spent with Tommy and Charlie, walking the grounds.

The sky that day boasted clouds like fairy floss, their edges dipped in rosy pink and lavender blue. They waited until ten, when the soft pastels painting the world overhead coalesced into the grey light of an overcast day.  


Thomas wore a casual woolen suit in black, with a long coat. She had her hair soft about her face, held back by a silk, lavender scarf.  


“I like your hair like this.”  


“You’ve told me,” she said, taking Charlie from his arms. The baby ran his palm over the thick, lynx collar of her champagne overcoat. He made a sound of delight, fisting his hands into the soft fur.  


“Easy, Charlie,” Tommy told him, “you’ll ruin mama’s coat.”  


“He’s the only one allowed to ruin a fur coat.”  


“Not even the man who bought it?”  


“Especially not him.”  


“Ah, I see.”  


They walked leisurely towards the stables; the wind combing the short, muddy grass, its fingers sinking into the bare branches of the trees. The shivering limbs trembled against the cold. A curtain of clouds opened, through which the sun peaked. Grace tilted her head up, to feel the warm rays sink into her skin. Closing her eyes, she heard the rustling leaves, the singing blackbirds, felt the touch of the sun, the weight of Charlie in her arms, the smell of wet earth, of Charlie’s clean, talcum scent, and Tommy’s tobacco.  


“Can you feel it?” She breathed.  


“Feel what?” Tommy said at her side, threading his gloved fingers through hers.  


_This moment, where everything is good and right._ She recognized it for what it was: happiness, a word rarely identified in the moment it is experienced, but doubly sweet when it is—when the abstraction becomes tangible and visceral. Her reply remained unspoken, for how was she to voice it without sounding foolish?  


But Thomas understood. He looked at her, a faint smile around the corners of his mouth. “Yes, I feel it.”  


She tucked Charlie a little higher on her chest, both to hold him closer and to rest her tired limbs.  


“Let me hold him.”  


As he took Charlie’s heavy weight from her, the baby wrapping his arm about his father’s neck, she remained where she was, unmoving, even when he walked on.  


Behind them, Arrow House rose from the earth, its enormous foundation stretched out like the reclining body of a stone giant. The decorative chimney stacks reached into the sky, collected into groups of six or more, covered in brick with chevron patterns, twisting stripes, or latticework. To the Tudors, such brickwork was the sign of wealth, an extravagant display of patience and craftsmanship. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey built Hampton Court in the same style, years before King Henry took it from him. Would someone rise high enough to take Arrow House from them? Like a bold, thieving king or like a wolf, silent and cunning? She’d dreamed of wolves the night before.  


“Grace?”  


She shook off the pall of those thoughts, as if they weren’t sewn into her very skin, as if they were only a coat she could don or shed at will. Grace followed the echo of Tommy’s question, thrown over his shoulder from up ahead.  


The stables smelled of cut hay and horse, their damp coats, their waste—which, no matter how often the stable hands swept clean, could never be entirely removed. It was comfortably dark within, silent, still. 

Thomas moved with ease within the quiet of this world. His shoulders, which had been a little higher out in the open fields, fell, and his quick gait slowed. With Charlie still in his arms, he walked to a stall housing one of his racehorses. “Look there, Charlie.” He pointed at the far back, where the horse stood on three hooves, resting his foreleg. “This big man and his brother are going to make us a lot of money.”  


“Or lose us a lot of money.” Grace leaned her head against his shoulder.  


“Who cares when they’re such beautiful beasts, eh?”  


His voice traveled along his back and into her body. He turned his head to kiss her brow. Charlie remained thoughtful and quiet in the face of the horses.  


“Shall I bring Niamh from her stall, Mr. Shelby?” Oisín, in his brown, tweed waistcoat and flat cap, asked them from his place by the tack room.  


“Yes, Oisín.”  


Together, they walked to Grace’s horse, a young Irish Cob Tommy had given her as soon as she recovered from Charlie’s birth.  


_“So you can follow me on my gypsy rambles.”_ He’d told her.  


_“She’s beautiful, Tommy.”_  


_“What will you name her?”_  


_“Niamh, like in the stories.”_  


_“The blonde one? Who steals away her man to The Land of Youth?”_  


_“Yes, as I have stolen you.”_  


Oisín brought Niamh out of the stall, dropping the lead into Tommy’s hand.  


“Thank you, Oisín.”  


The boy nodded, doffing his cap when Grace turned to greet him.  


“How is your father, Oisín?”  


“He’ll be back on his feet before the week’s out, Mrs. Shelby.”  


“I’m glad to hear that. Did he enjoy the barmbrack?”  


“He did. Said it reminded him of home.”  


“Good. I’ll send him some more tonic today, to make sure he mends well.”  


From without the stables they heard someone shout his name.  


Oisín touched his cap with a nod and gave a hurried “thank you.” Then he was off running, hollering in answer at the impatient caller.  


Turning, Grace saw Tommy was looking at her with a slight, satisfied smile.  


“You caring for the tenants, Mrs. Shelby?”  


Grace bumped his shoulder lightly, “Hush.”  


He set Charlie on the ground, where she took his small hands into her own to help him stay on his trembling feet.  


The horse Oisín left them with stood fifteen hands with a platinum coat and silky feather as rich as her curling mane. She was even-tempered and lazy.  


Thomas took oats from a nearby bucket, kneeling on his haunches beside Charlie. Offering the oats to Niamh, he coaxed her to lower her head, then held her noseband firmly as Charlie tried to touch her, unafraid.  


“Softly, now,” he stressed, speaking as gently as he wished Charlie to behave.  


Grace kneeled behind Charlie, laying her hand over his wrist to show him how to stroke Niamh’s muzzle. The horse went on eating her oats, unbothered.  


Charlie remained quiet, staring with wide eyes at the enormous creature as he felt her bristly coat.  


“There’s the look.” Tommy said.  


“Like his father, then?”  


“We’ll see, once we can get him into the saddle.”  


“When he’s older, of course.”  


“I was three when my father put me on a horse.”  


“That’s too young. He’d be little more than a baby.”  


Thomas hummed, still watching Charlie and the horse. “We’ll see.”  


Eventually, Niamh tired of her captive audience. She tossed her head, jerking the noseband and Tommy’s arm along with it. Charlie stumbled back into Grace, seeking shelter, but he seemed more curious than afraid.  


Grace wrapped her arms around his chest, enveloping his little body in the harbor of her embrace. “My brave boy,” she said.  


Thomas put the horse into her stall, undoing the leather bridle, hanging it up from an iron nail on the wooden wall.  


“What will he look like, years from now, when he can ride these horses?” she asked, carrying the baby, touching his hair and tracing the shape of his face.  


“He comes from good stock. He’ll have all of the Shelby charm.”  


“God help us.”  


Thomas smirked around a newly lit cigarette. “Come on, let’s show the little charmer the goldfish.”  


Outside the stables, in a cobblestone courtyard surrounded by the stone walls of the old carriage house, was a trough filled with clear, cold water. Within it, in idle circles, swam orange goldfish, pecking the walls and floor of the wooden basin. They appeared jewel-like and vibrant against the velvety darkness of the trough.  


“Look, Charlie,” she said, holding onto the trough with one gloved hand, her other pointing at the fish.  


Thomas kneeled beside her, trailing a finger through the water, creating swirling currents on the still surface. The placid fish remained undisturbed, moving only the slightest bit in the face of this disruption.  


Charlie, emboldened by his father’s lead, stuck his ungloved hand into the water. He pulled it back in surprise, saying something that sounded almost like “Cold.”  


Grace laughed, “Yes, darling, it’s cold. _Fuar. Kalt_.”  


“With all the languages he’s hearing, he won’t speak until he’s ten.”  


Charlie, ignorant that he was the topic of their conversation, tried again to reach the goldfish. With a single index finger, he breached the placid surface of the water, wanting to touch the slimy scales of the fish as his father was doing.  


Watching them both, Grace leaned forward to drop a kiss upon his downy head, then to kiss Thomas’ cheek.  


“What was that for?”  


She returned his smile, “Why not?”  


He kissed her firmly, in plain view. Snug between them, Charlie continued to terrorize the fish, making vocal sounds of delight and protest. Around them, the servants pretended not to watch or pause in their work. They, in turn, knew only each other in that brief moment.  


With an outstretched hand, Thomas helped her stand. He leaned down to pluck Charlie from his place. Loudly, Charlie protested, but Thomas swung him in a wide, spinning circle, turning his near tantrum into unbound laughter.  


“You came home late last night.” Grace said as they neared Arrow House.  


“I had to stop by Small Heath, to speak with John.”  


“Did anything happen?”  


“Nothing of any importance.”

“He’s lost the plot,” Polly’s voice said through the receiver, hours later. Upstairs, Charlie was tucked into his cot for a nap, tired from the excitement of their morning walk. Thomas was away, more business in London.  


Grace took a seat on the Chippendale chair in the phone room. She set the bronze candlestick body of the telephone onto the narrow desk, beside a wooden tray holding a stack of blank notes, the Shelby name printed at the head in gold foil.  


“Who’s lost the plot?”  


“John. Thomas. The lot of them. Never thought the day would come when Arthur was the one with all the common sense.”  


“I’ll need more than that to follow, Polly.”  


“Oh? You don’t know?”  


Grace took a deep breath, gathering the peace of the morning around her. “What happened?”  


“I thought he told you everything, sweetheart.”  


That endearment, from Polly’s lips, with the sarcastic drawl of her voice, like acid poured straight into her eardrum.  


“Do you intend to tell me why you’ve called, or shall I hang up now and spare myself your enchanting conversation?”  


“A bit sensitive today, aren’t you?”  


“Polly—”  


“Soft as ever.”  


Her fingers bit into the receiver, knuckles going white.  


“I can hear the steam coming out of your ears.”  


“It was nice speaking with you, Polly—”  


“Come off the plank, Grace. No need to hang up now that I’m coming ‘round to the point.”  


Grace remained on the line, silent.  


“Ask Tommy what John did yesterday. It’s not something we should discuss over the telephone.”  


“And after I ask, what exactly is it you want me to accomplish?”  


“You may not accomplish anything. He’s dug in his heels, wouldn’t listen to a thing I said.”  


“He wouldn’t listen to you?” Grace began sweetly, pretending to be shocked. “And here I thought you were so important to him.”  


“We can’t always count on Thomas to make wise decisions. That’s how you’re here, after all.”  


Grace felt her cutting stare seep through the receiver.  


“I’ll talk to him.”  


“Perhaps that pretty face of yours will be good for something.”  


Grace hung up, sitting in silence within the tiny room. She stared at the phone, the decorative scrollwork of the bronze metal blurring out of focus, blending with the fleur-de-lis pattern of the teal wallpaper. She recalled the dream she’d had the night before. A shadowy dream of nonsense with twisted images.

Grace stood within a great hall. Flickering weakly in the gloom of night were bronze sconces. Beneath her feet rested a thick, Turkish carpet whose muted patterns and colors was as familiar a sight as the warm walnut paneling along the walls. This was a room she recognized, for it wasn’t yet two years since she’d had a hand in dressing it. A glance upward revealed one unusual feature: the ceiling, with its intricate plasterwork, was absent. In its place shone a perfectly round moon, shyly hidden behind a lacework of clouds, like a bride glancing through her veil. The brass chandeliers hung from this overcast sky, their silk-covered chains holding them aloft, soaring high beyond human reach. Through the polished floorboards grew tall, thin trees, sparse branches rustling in the flicker of the coal fireplace. Evergreen needles littered the rug, and Grace traced their path to the entryway.  


At the carved door leading into the great hall stood Mary, in her black uniform.  


Grace felt a hand squeeze her own and looked to her side. Tommy was next to her, in his wedding suit, staring at the housekeeper.  


In the curious way of dreams, she accepted this inexplicable landscape and her place within it without question.  


Mary pulled the heavy door open. There was no receiving room with its impressive staircase or large portraits hung within gilded frames, only a black void beyond the threshold. Out of this emptiness emerged the shadowed shapes of three wolves, their lean flanks and narrow shoulders equal to the most impressive of Irish Wolfhounds. Nails tapping against the floorboards, they approached her and Thomas. Mary, with her expressionless face and piercing eyes, seemed to recede into the distance, the wooden floor between them stretching into a long field. The walls of the great hall sunk seamlessly into the ground, a blanket of snow appeared over the Turkish carpet, spreading like water spilled from a glass, until it extended far into the horizon, where the tiny figure of Mary still stood, next to a door without a wall.  


It was a quiet, peaceful scene, with a soft breeze batting the gently falling snow. She held out her hand, to catch a snowflake, but when it landed, she realized it was the seed of a dandelion. Still, it melted in the warmth of her palm like ice.  


Around them, the wolves circled. One of the creatures, brown-eyed with a rich walnut coat, settled at Tommy’s feet. The other, jet black with a white collar, sat on its haunches beneath the moonlit shadow of a gnarled cypress, panting through an open mouth, from which hung its wet tongue.  


The earth around her began to rise, or elsewise the ground she stood on began to sink. She could not precisely tell how it happened, but the result was the same: she stood in a deep depression from which she could see worms and beetles crawling through the layers of unearthed dirt. Thomas still held her hand, but he stood far above her, on the lip of the ditch. Her arm was stretched up high, to reach him.  


“Tommy?”  


He watched her through a frown, his brow wrinkled.  
Somewhere near them she heard Charlie’s voice crying. Yet she could not see him in the vast, white field, only Mary far on the horizon, Thomas above her, and the wolves, one of which continued to circle them in slow laps, staring out from one blue eye set into an ashy face. The other eye had a white film over the pupil, like cream poured into a cup of tea.  


Her shallow ditch began to expand outwards; Tommy’s grip on her hand loosened and he was carried away from her on the receding soil. The wolf at his feet remained where she lay, leaning her flank into his calf.  


She could still hear Charlie crying.  


“Tommy, where are you going?”  


There was no reply.  


The Turkish rug from the great room was still beneath her and she felt it appropriate to sit; its thick pile felt itchy and hard against her skin. Nevertheless, she settled onto her back, her golden hair pillowing her head, to watch the moon through the clouds.  


The old wolf, since pacing the new boundary of her shallow canyon, broke away from the gravity of his elliptical path. As it neared Thomas, its muzzle wrinkled in a soundless snarl. Saliva gathered along the open edges of its maw, dripping down long, white teeth, gleaming like knives in the moonlight.  


“You should be careful, Tommy,” she said.  


“It’s just business, Grace. Bad business all around.”  


The wolf continued past her husband, sliding down a wall of crumbling dirt into her ditch. It approached her at a slow trot and licked her collarbone, exposed by the wide neckline of her gown.  


It placed one paw over her shoulder and leaned all its weight upon it. An indention appeared in her skin beneath the pressure, yet it did not hurt.  


The last thing she recognized before she woke, was the sound of Thomas calling her name.

Sitting in the narrow room, staring at the phone, Grace raised a hand to her chest, tracing a line from her heart to her shoulder, where a vague, piercing ache remained.

The Erdington Cottage Homes were a collection of, as the name suggested, cottages, fairly new and well-kept. Built around a clock tower set into a wide, cul-de-sac avenue, with expansive front gardens and paved backyards for ballgames, they formed a self-sufficient village. The cottages housed the less fortunate children of Birmingham, some of which had parents and relatives to care for them, but who could not afford to do so. In their place, a foster mother, one per cottage, cared for the children of each home. At the end of the avenue there was an infirmary in the Pavilion style, a schoolhouse just off it, a pool, fields for sport, a generous kitchen garden, a gymnasium, and workshops for learning trades.  


On Tuesdays, Mrs. Changretta donated her time to teach morning classes. Grace had tried, when her tour had been arranged, to catch her before she left. But by the time her verbose and slow-moving guide led her to the schoolroom, class had been dismissed. She caught only a glimpse of her hat and coat in the distance, her body a small, hunched figure. This was before John cut Angel. Before things had spun beyond all control.  


Today, Grace would try to speak to her again. She wasn’t sure what she hoped to accomplish, but she didn’t think she could possibly make things worse. Not unless she took a razor blade to the poor woman.  


“Mrs. Shelby, we shouldn’t be in this part of town.”  


From the front seat, Darwin looked out the windshield to the Italian flag prominently displayed outside a butcher’s shop. It could almost be confused for the Irish flag, if it weren’t for the red.  


“It’s only a bakery, Darwin. They’re rumored to have the best cake in Birmingham and I’d like something beautiful for the children to enjoy on Christmas.”  


That was mostly true. The Italian bakery they were idling outside of made stunning sweets, but it was also Mrs. Changretta’s favorite place to buy her bread and linger over a cup of coffee. Every morning before ten, excepting heavy rainfall, she could be counted on to come, or so her source assured her.  


Darwin patted his jacket before exiting the car, no doubt comforting himself with the knowledge of the revolver hidden there.  


Coming around the front of the Sunbeam, he pulled her door open, holding his hand out to her.  


Winter was truly setting in; a cold wind rushed up the street tearing open the flaps of her unbuttoned coat, stealing the warmth straight from her skin.  


“Thank you, Darwin,” she said, not having to pretend as she rubbed her hands together for warmth. “Keep the car running, please, or I fear I might freeze when I return to it.”  


He hesitated, his mouth opening, about to protest.  


“You can see me through the glass,” she comforted him, preempting any protest. “I’ll be but a few moments. And it will be much less conspicuous.”  


“I’ll walk you in.”  


They approached the stone building with its large French windows and single door, painted neatly in black. Through the glass, they could see elaborate displays of tiered cakes in white icing with gum paste flowers, or rows of Italian sweets, dusted or glazed with sugar. Black letters with gold outlines marked both windows, spelling shop’s name: _Buonocore’s Italian Bakery, established 1897._  


Darwin pulled open the door, casting his eyes over the busy interior. She saw him take in the customers lined up at the counter, those sitting at tiny tables by the bank of windows on the adjacent wall, the employees bustling about in their white aprons, the doors leading out the back or into the kitchen.  


What he didn’t notice, or perhaps failed to register as a relevant threat, was the small figure of a woman cozily sequestered in the farthest corner, her back towards them, short, gray curls neatly pinned, holding up a small book at face-level.  


“Please stay within sight, ma’am.”  


Grace smiled complacently, shedding her gloves, but keeping her hat in place—it helped hide her hair and face. “Of course, Darwin. Shall I get you a cup of tea or a coffee? They have those new pressurized machines here.”  


“No, ma’am, no need.”  


“I think I might have some. They say you should always try new things while there’s the chance to do so.”  


“Of course, ma’am. I’ll wait in the car.”  


She noticed he refrained from using her name, and she thought it a wise precaution.  


Waiting her turn in line, she observed the cakes displayed on shelves behind the counter. There was one she knew would do perfectly for the children’s home. It was four tiers of white icing, with enormous, white poinsettias cascading along one end, their hearts and the ends of each petal dusted in pearlescent gold. She did want something extravagant and beautiful for the children, something they might have never had occasion of seeing before. A true, luxurious twelfth-night cake the likes of which great homes displayed for the end of Christmastide.  


“How can I be of service?”  


The young man who addressed her had light green eyes and rich, dark, curling hair. His face barely showed a hint of stubble, too young perhaps to grow a proper beard.  


“I wish to place an order, for something like what you have displayed behind you.”  


The young man turned to look at the cake she indicated. When he saw it, his eyebrows rose higher on his forehead, and he immediately smiled.  


“Let me get our head baker.”  


The head baker was Mr. Buonocore himself, a man in his late sixties, with grey hair, faintly hunched shoulders, thick, horn-rimmed glasses, and a slight accent. He spoke perfect English, but sprinkled Italian words frequently throughout their conversation, though he must have realized she had absolutely no idea what they meant.  


Grace kept a careful eye on Mrs. Changretta as she placed her order, asking Mr. Buonocore to top the cake with a whimsical figurine of Saint Nicholas in a winter’s forest, something that she thought would delight the children.  


“What name should I place on the order, ma’am?”  


“Mrs. Macmillan,” she spoke calmly and paid the exorbitant deposit, adding to her order a small box of pastries she’d never seen before and an espresso.  


“I’ll wait at that table, by the back.”  


“We’ll have it to you soon, Mrs. Macmillan.”  


She smiled, then made her way through the crowd, keeping her face turned towards the floor. Darwin would not give her much time now that she was out of sight.  


There were two men sitting three tables away from Mrs. Changretta, speaking in fluent Italian. They wore their long coats inside, and had consumed nothing, or at least, there were no cups or plates before them. One of them turned his head to look at her as she passed. His companion followed suit when she paused before Mrs. Changretta.  


There could be no doubt what they were.  


Carefully, Grace smiled at the older woman.  


Mrs. Changretta seemed startled by her appearance, but she did not appear to recognize her.  


“Mrs. Changretta, yes? Forgive me for interrupting you, but I believe you volunteer at the Erdington Cottage Homes?”  


Putting down her book, open-faced onto the table, Mrs. Changretta cautiously returned her smile. “Yes, I do.”  


“I’m a patron of theirs. Would you mind if I sit for a moment?”  


Grace could tell she’d caught her unawares, and she took advantage of this surprise to sit. “Forgive me, I should introduce myself. My name is Grace.”  


Mrs. Changretta took her offered hand, shaking it slowly. “You have me at a disadvantage, my dear. You seem to know me much better than I know you.” She laughed lightly.  


“My married name is Shelby.”  


Her face, which had hosted a polite smile, cleared of all pleasantness. There was nothing tentative about the stone somberness which overcame her, in fact, Grace thought it an admirable control of the anger she might be feeling.  


“Please, I did not come here to add to your grief.”  


Mrs. Changretta closed her book, remaining silent.  


“I know nothing I say to you now can mend what’s been done to your child. But I have nothing to lose by taking the risk of speaking to you, beyond your understandable contempt and perhaps an unpleasant exit from this shop.”  


Grace looked cautiously at the door, her gaze catching on the two men who were staring back at her. “What my brother-in-law has done is unforgivable.” The words she wished to follow with were difficult to articulate, given the gravity of John’s offense. “All the same, I beg you to end the vendetta he’s begun.”  


“How can you come here, to ask me that, after what my boy has suffered?” Mercifully, her voice remained a whisper.  


Grace pushed on quickly, spotting Darwin getting out of the car.  


“What do you think will happen when your family retaliates, Mrs. Changretta?”  


She remained tight-lipped, her cheeks ruddy and spotted with the flush of her anger.  


“Your son has suffered, but he is alive. Death can be the only result if this continues.”  


Grace saw Darwin at the door. A waiter, carrying her order, obscured him. The young man placed her box of sweets and cup of coffee before her. Taking the coffee, she drank it down in one bitter swallow, unable to enjoy it in the least.  


She stood without hurry, pretending they were continuing an amiable conversation. “Please, think on it.”  


Mrs. Changretta did not respond. Grace took up the box of sweets, walking to the front of the shop.  


One of the men who had been observing them stepped up to Mrs. Changretta. She heard him address her in Italian, to which she responded, in English, “Not at all, Luca. Just a pleasant chat about the Children’s Home. She’s a patron there.”  


Darwin held the door open for her, looking past her at the table she’d shared with Mrs. Changretta, attentive to the details and to the conversation. Grace could tell, by the way he addressed her, that he knew she’d been up to more than shopping. The young man who’d first served her, the baby-faced lad too young to grow a beard, placed the final nail in the coffin.  


“Fresh coffee, Mrs. Changretta?”  


Darwin’s gaze slid to her. It was only a matter of time before Tommy found out.  


It wasn’t long past supper when this proved true. She’d stepped into the library to collect one of the books she’d given Thomas. She wanted to finish it before hiring the tutor. She heard the car in the drive, and paused with the book held to her chest, wondering where to have this next argument. His study? Hers? Their bedroom? Which battleground to pick?  


She hurried to the stairs, to make it to her study before he did. Perhaps avoid the argument a while longer. It turned out it hadn’t been the car arriving she’d heard, but rather the car departing for the carriage house.  


When she opened the door, Thomas was already there, sitting behind her desk, leisurely reclined, smoking a cigarette. He had his elbow propped on the armrest and his chin rested upon the back of his hand. The picture of ease, if not for his hard eyes.  


Walking to the desk, she sat in one of the two chairs before it. “Let’s hear it.”  


“I’m not sure where to start.”  


“I must have shocked you terribly, if I’ve left you speechless.”  


“Oh, no, Grace. I have plenty to say.”  


“We should have tea, then. I bought the loveliest Italian pastries.”  


He lost some of his nonchalance and she saw him clench his jaw, running his tongue along the inside of his mouth.  


“What were you thinking.”  


“I was thinking that I couldn’t possibly do any further harm. Short of cutting her, that is.”  


“You went into the Italian side, with only Darwin, in the middle of a war—”  


“Which I’ve begged you to end.”  


“You spoke with Vincente Changretta’s wife, in her territory, surrounded by her people and her men.”  


She placed the book on the desk before her. “Yet here I am.”  


Thomas stubbed the cigarette out on in a small, ceramic bowl she kept for collecting the worn nibs of her fountain pens. He moved methodically, as if thinking of his every action before he committed to it, keeping careful control over himself.  


“If you ever do something like this again—”  


“You’ll what, Thomas?”  


“You’ve never seen me backed into a corner, Grace—”  


“We’re already cornered. Flanked on all sides by every nationality. Russians, Italians, Irishmen. Who shall we challenge next? The Chinese? I hear they’re a worthy opponent. Maybe they’ll give you the challenge you‘re looking for.”  


He licked his lips, clearing his throat before continuing, as if she hadn’t interrupted him. “If you ever do something like this again, Grace, you’ll be asking your uncle for an extended stay.”  


They stared at each other as the lit fireplace crackled behind them, the only sound in the otherwise soundless room. “This is my home,” she said firmly, “I won’t leave it, not even when you’re furious enough to kick me out of it.” She nearly told him that if she ever did leave, Charlie would come with her. But she bit her lip, unwilling to douse the fire with kerosene. That wasn’t a threat he would ignore, and it was too cruel to use Charlie like a bartering chip in their anger.  


He turned his gaze away from her, pulling in a deep drag of his cigarette, drawing patience from the nicotine filling his lungs. He exhaled slowly, tilting his chin up as he did so. “What you did was reckless.”  


“No, what John did was reckless, yet you backed him in full, despite what you knew it would cause.” She added, smoothing her skirt, “there isn’t anything I could have possibly done to make things worse.”  


“No? Didn’t you think about what I’d do if they had touched you?”  


“Then it’s a good thing they didn’t.”  


He exhaled a long ribbon of smoke, and along with it, some of the fury propping him up.  


The air, which had been charged with the energy of an approaching storm, frizzled out, like static discharged. Their anger slipped away from them both, a drop of water into parched soil. “Aren’t you tired, Grace? Of having the same argument on different days?”  


She leaned her head back into her seat, staring up at the ceiling before closing her eyes. “I am. But Tommy,” here she looked at him, for it felt important that he could see she meant it, “this isn’t something we can ignore. None of it is.

* * *

Author’s Notes:  
Apologies for the long delay!

Historical Notes:  
Any historical notes below are cobbled together using copy and paste, with editing for brevity and clarity.

\- The Irish Cob, also called a Gypsy Cob, is a horse breed reportedly created by Irish Travelers. They were originally bred for strength and an even temperament, as not only were they meant to pull heavy loads (like vardos) but remain docile around the children or elderly who might need to lead and care for them. They are on the larger side, with characteristic feather along their lower legs. Typically, the Cob is depicted as a pinto, but can be any color. In the early 20th century the breed wasn’t recognized, so it wouldn’t have been coveted by the upper crust (and especially not a pinto, which was unpopular). During the early episodes of season 3, Thomas shows a great deal of concern for fitting in as a rich man, so it’s very likely he would have purchased Grace a recognized breed rather than a Cob. However, Cobs were very valuable among the Traveler community, especially a quality specimen with fine feather and a beautiful coat. Today, the Irish Cob is a recognized breed and is used in dressage and other events.

\- The Fenian Cycle is a body of Irish prose and verse centering on the mythical hero Fionn mac Cumhaill and his warriors, the Fianna. Niamh is a character in this cycle, wife of Oisin. In their story she is represented as an otherworldly woman who persuaded Oisín to live with her in her domain of Tír na nÓg, the Land of Youth. They and their children lived happily in The Land of Eternal Youth for several centuries, until Oisin becomes homesick for Ireland. He’s given the opportunity to visit, with one caveat: his feet must never touch the ground. Of course, he breaks this taboo and upon doing so the 300 years he spent as a young man in The Land of Eternal Youth catch up with him. There are different versions of the myth, as it is quite old and has been retold many times.

\- In some contexts, the Cypress is associated with death or with mourning. The whole dream scene is admittedly way too metaphorical and obvious, but I let the fanfiction get away from me, lol.

\- The Erdington Cottage Homes was a real place. It closed down in the late 1900’s.

-Espresso machines were around at this time, but they were new to the scene.

-Buonocore is an Italian surname which translates to “Good Heart.”


End file.
